


Sweet Home, Clairton

by Jackie_Gaytona



Category: What We Do in the Shadows (TV)
Genre: Angst, Attempt at Humor, Crack, Fluff, Hotels, M/M, Rare Pairings, Road Trip, himbomania, you know the drill
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:06:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 51,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27223210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jackie_Gaytona/pseuds/Jackie_Gaytona
Summary: After Nandor and Nadja fall in love (which they seem to do every few decades, only for it to end in tears), Laszlo decides to travel to Pennsylvania, don his blue jeans, and become Jackie Daytona again! Only this time, he reluctantly takes a lovesick human dumpling and a mind-numbing energy vampire along for the ride. Once in Clairton, he sets up a new bar generously donated to him by some guy he drank, and revisits some old friends. Eventually he finds himself falling for Guillermo, oh no. Also Colin finds love. Drinks are on Jackie!
Relationships: Colin Robinson/Original Female Character(s), Guillermo de la Cruz/Nandor the Relentless, Jackie Daytona/Gizmo, Laszlo Cravensworth/Guillermo de la Cruz, Nadja/Nandor the Relentless (What We Do in the Shadows TV)
Comments: 53
Kudos: 62





	1. On the road again

**Author's Note:**

> Back on my Laszlermo bs! Thank you to the Nandermo discord for giving me ideas for this fic, particularly Upstartcrow4!

Two things entered Laszlo’s mind when he walked into the fancy room on this particularly balmy, stormy night. One: why did everyone decide to fuck in here? Two: oh no…not again.

He was no stranger to Nandor and Nadja’s trysts. In fact, he was involved in them most of the time. So it wasn’t the sight of Nandor sucking on Nadja’s tits like a starving whelp, or the fact that his best friend was balls-deep inside of her. No…it was the clothing that currently hung off them half-unbuttoned and half-unlaced. Matching colors. Black lace, crimson brocade, gold trim, mottled furs – as if their usual attire had bred and produced ugly offspring.

This could only mean one thing. Laszlo turned and left the room unseen, his mood suddenly souring. No doubt the two of them would call a house meeting in exactly ten minutes. In the meantime, he had some brooding to do.

There was one – and only one – silver-lining to the situation, and that was the prospect of seeing Guillermo’s reaction. Laszlo knew he was infatuated with his master, to the point that it was dreadfully obvious and cringe-worthy. Did the boy know that the vampires could hear his heartbeat quicken; sense his entire demeanor change whenever Nandor was within his proximity? Then again, Nandor was in a constant state of oblivion and probably too thick to notice.

Nandor, that fucker, who was presently standing beside Laszlo’s bride of more than 500 years, one arm slung proudly around her shoulders, his face practically glowing with a brainless grin. The absolute pillock.

“We are in love, Laszlo!” he announced.

“Bollocks to that!” Laszlo spat. “You do this every thirty years and it always ends up with my lady wife heartbroken and weeping for a month, and then it’s _me_ who has to come pick up the pieces!” He wiped his face with one big, recently-manicured hand, exasperated. The last thing he expected (or wanted) upon waking tonight was finding his sweet wife and best friend diddling on the lounge for all the world to see. First it was George…Joe…Jeff? Now Nandor… _again_!

“Nadja and I were thinking of getting married,” Nandor continued, his chest puffed out in a mock show of hauteur, his hand squeezing the opposite shoulder of an awkward but pleased Nadja. “She is everything to me and I love her and—”

“You say this _every_ _time_ , Nandor,” Laszlo groaned. “You try to arrange a wedding and it ends with Nadja brandishing one of your swords while you cower and weep in a corner. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve had to come rescue you!”

“Where is Guillermo?” Nandor said suddenly, as if only noticing his familiar’s absence. “I want to tell him the good news! Guillermo! _Guillermo_!”

Laszlo was getting a fucking headache. Nandor was going to summon more than just the short round kid if he kept up this volume. Thankfully Guillermo must have been close by, because a moment later he hurried into the room, sweaty and flustered.

“Where were you, Guillermo?” Nandor demanded. “I called a house meeting five minutes ago!”

“Sorry, Master, I was hauling a bod—” Guillermo stopped short upon seeing the new couple. His eyes widened at how close they stood together; at the playful little smirk on Nadja’s lips and the stupidly big, amorous grin on Nandor’s. And then his eyes slid slowly, hesitantly, over to meet Laszlo in the eye, and no doubt found him looking extremely vexed **.**

"Attention everyone,” Nadja announced, as if they hadn’t all been arguing a minute ago. “Nandor and I have decided we are in love and are to be married. He is my true knight in shining armour and unlike my current _pig-shit_ husband, he knows how to please a woman."

Laszlo felt his face heat up immediately. The audacity! “How dare you!” he snarled.

“Don’t speak to my future wife like that!” Nandor whined.

“Future fucking _wife_?”

“Yes, I will be fucking her again in the future—”

“What’s going on here?” Guillermo cut in, his voice a quiet, hoarse stutter. Behind his spectacles, his eyes were giant dishes. “I-is this some kind of joke? A prank?”

“A joke!” Nandor fumed. “Guillermo, I will not tolerate this insolence. My love for Nadja is _real_. I have loved her, longed for her, for so long—”

“Just yesterday you were taunting her about burning down her village!” Laszlo shouted.

“What the _fuck_ is going on here?” That was Guillermo again, but this time his voice was loud and demanding. Ever since the theatre incident, the little shit thought his vampire housemates owed him the world, and he was sticking up for himself far too much now. As a result, he wasn’t afraid to raise his voice when the urge came over him. Laszlo secretly applauded the size of his balls, but simultaneously wished they’d shrink again.

Some infinitesimal part of his brain that actually gave a fraction of a shit for people decided to put the boy out of his misery. “Every few decades, this dim berk decides to fall in love with my wife and organise a wedding.”

“Don’t call my Nandy such nasty names, darling!”

“I’m not your darling anymore, darling!” Laszlo stopped and frowned at himself. The longer he stayed around these two, the more braincells he’d lose. He looked over at Guillermo in an attempt to grasp that silver-lining he’d thought about earlier. Instead, for some peculiar reason, the sorry sight before him just made him feel even worse. Guillermo’s face was like a theatrical performance of confusion and betrayal and agony and sadness. His lips were all wobbly. His glasses were fogging up. His eyebrows were like unearthed worms desperate to get away from the two cruel, preening birds in front of them. Laszlo hardly noticed Nadja’s performance of cooing and soothing the taller vampire, telling him he wasn’t a stupid man and that he was smarter than the ass-monkey in front of them. Nor did he really notice the way Nandor bent down (still with that shit-eating grin on his face) and planted a big kiss on Nadja’s lips. Instead, he was focused on the way Guillermo’s eyes filled with tears and the way his hands shook and the way his skin went red as if he was really, _really_ gearing up for an outburst.

He hoped there were no stakes in their vicinity. Not that he himself wouldn’t love to throw one or two at Nandor right now.

It was all a farce, Laszlo knew. Give them a week, a month tops, and the new couple would be holding swords against each other’s throats. But whether or not Guillermo believed this…well, it was clear already that he didn’t. He was a terribly pathetic boy who took everything to heart and would be absolutely _lost_ without the man he had not-so-secretly worshipped for over a decade. If Laszlo still had a beating heart, he may have felt a tiny speck of unironic pity for the lad.

He came back to the present now to find his wife and friend exchanging kisses and subsequently causing an awkward tension to settle over their small audience. In the end, it became too much for the boy, and Guillermo stormed off. Laszlo had to hand it to him – he lasted longer than he’d expected.

************

The door to the big blue room was shut, but Laszlo didn’t bother knocking. He knew what Guillermo would be doing…or so he thought. He ambled inside, a little cautiously, expecting to be met with the boy face-down on his bed bawling his eyes out. Possibly even screaming into a pillow and tearing his hair out. Instead, he found him standing beside his bed, stuffing clothes into a duffel bag that sat open on his crumpled bedsheets. Tears rolled silently down his cheeks, and his lips were still wobbling, but his brow was scrunched together and his eyes were aflame with rage **.** He didn’t look up when Laszlo entered; even when the vampire cleared his throat.

Laszlo opened his mouth to speak. Closed it. Opened it again. What the hell was he supposed to say? Why did he even come in here? He couldn’t bring himself to comfort a human familiar, let alone one as pathetic as Guillermo. He couldn’t even think of something snappy or insulting to say. Instead he just leaned against the doorframe and watched.

Eventually Guillermo spoke, his voice firm but upset. “I’m going to go live with my mom for a while,” he said, and Laszlo wondered why the boy thought he should care. “Figure out what I’m doing after that.” The human scoffed, his lips widening into a sardonic grin. “This is what, the third time I’ll be leaving? Never really got the hang of once bitten, twice shy.”

Laszlo screwed his nose up. “Since when were _you_ bitten?”

Guillermo shot daggers at him. “It’s a saying,” he said at length, in a way that made Laszlo bristle; as though he thought the vampire were daft. He decided he’d spent far too much time in Nandor’s general vicinity, and the dumbassery was rubbing off on him. He shook his head, as if to clear it.

“Well, I’m going on vacation,” he said, because there was nothing else to say.

Guillermo raised his eyebrows. “What, like, flying somewhere?”

“Do you know how exhausting it would be to fly to Pennsylvania?” Laszlo snapped, proud to suddenly have the upper-hand.

“Pennsyl—why are you going there?” Guillermo blurted. His bag was forgotten; he was staring at Laszlo with open curiosity now. Laszlo suddenly regretted divulging.

“Going to meet some old friends,” he said guardedly, meeting Guillermo’s eyes.

“How are you going to get there? Do you even have a license?”

Laszlo felt his upper-handedness slipping and he scowled. “That’s my fucking business,” he said. He was angrier at himself for the thoughts that were slowly creeping into his head than he was at Guillermo. He’d planned to taxi during the night and hole up at a shady hotel in Pennsylvania before sunrise. His favourite hotel. The one with no windows.

Now he was considering the small detail of Guillermo having a car license, and a roomy black carriage to boot. That would be safer, wouldn’t it? If there were any emergencies; if the horse-power in the car died and they didn’t reach the hotel until morning, for example, it would be handy to have somebody who knew _what Laszlo was_ in order to keep him away from the sunlight. A taxi driver probably would not appreciate a bat in his vehicle. And if the driver were the chatty type… _ugh._ At least if Gizmo made too much noise Laszlo could tell him to shut the fuck up.

The words came out of his mouth before he could stop them. “I may need a chauffeur,” he said uncertainly.

Guillermo had since gone back to packing, and he didn’t bother looking at the vampire again. “Could always get a taxi.”

“To _Pennsylvania_?” Laszlo snapped in outrage, pretending that he wouldn’t even _consider_ such a foolish idea.

“Well, I’m taking the Flex,” Guillermo said decidedly. He zipped up his bag and slung it over one shoulder, his jaw set defiantly. When the fuck did this boy become so dauntless? Who was he to strut about the house claiming fancy carriages and addressing his superiors with such disdain? No wonder Nandor was fed up with him. Laszlo stood aside as Guillermo left the room, and then followed him out onto the landing. Guillermo was hovering at the head of the stairs with a thoughtful frown, presumably going through a mental checklist in his head to make sure he hadn’t forgotten anything.

“Is your mother a nice lady?” Laszlo blurted, and then wondered why the fuck he had asked such a thing. It was clear that Guillermo was wondering the same thing, given the sudden confusion on his face.

“Sure…why?” His voice was low and careful, and Laszlo realised with a start that he probably had the wrong idea in mind. He hurried along.

“Well, you’re a grown man,” he said, all the while wanting to kick himself, “you don’t want to be staying with your mother, do you? I am in need of a human driver, _and_ a suitable carriage, after all.”

Guillermo’s eyes almost popped out of his head, and Laszlo’s guts dropped in immediate regret, like the regret one feels using anal beads for the first time and wondering if they’ll ever be able to fish them out again.

“Y-you want me? To drive you?” the boy stuttered. Laszlo saw more tears well in his eyes and he pinched the bridge of his nose. This was a terrible idea. They couldn’t very well get safely to Pennsylvania if the human spent the entire time testing the waterworks. He shook his head, ready to let it go.

“Forget I said anything—”

“No! I’ll drive you,” Guillermo gushed, his desperation pitiful. “I don’t really want to go to Mama’s house, but I had nowhere else.”

“I can’t have you moping about the whole time, boy,” Laszlo said sternly, pointing a finger at his chest. “I plan to enjoy my vacation. Smorgasbords of boobies and cocks. All the virgin blood you could ever dream of. I’m talking week-long, massively violent, erotic blood orgies—” he was demonstrating things with his hands now, “—really primitive stuff. There will be coprophagia; necrophilia; _spectrophilia._ There may even be some formicophilia.”

“I’m not sure I want to know what that is,” Guillermo muttered.

“Did somebody say formicophilia?” a disembodied voice asked. Laszlo and Guillermo exchanged exasperated glances as Colin Robinson appeared from seemingly out of nowhere. Beside him was a small suitcase on wheels. “I know of one particular vampire who likes spiders—”

“Why do you have a suitcase?” Laszlo interrupted, already knowing the answer.

Colin’s fingers flexed on the bag’s long handle. “Well, I overheard you talking and thought to myself, do I want to stay here and listen to Nandor and Nadja’s alternating bouts of sex and fighting? Or do I join the guys on a road trip to Pennsylvania?”

“The trip is only a few hours,” Guillermo said dismally.

“How the fuck did you pack so quickly?” Laszlo grimaced.

“Oh, I always keep a carry-on handy for when things like this pop up.” Colin simpered before pushing past Guillermo and descending the stairs. “We can take turns driving, Gizmo!”

“It’s only a few hours,” Guillermo repeated quietly, as if only to assure himself.

“Still, you look tired.” The energy vampire had absolutely no sympathy in his peppy voice. “And you’re four times more likely to get into a collision while fatigued. Now, vampires don’t really need to worry about getting banged up. But humans?”

Guillermo and Laszlo chose to ignore him as they followed him to the foyer. Guillermo _did_ look tired, but Laszlo would rather risk killing the boy than put up with Colin Robinson in a car for any length of time, and _then_ , presumably, a hotel room. It looked like they had no choice but to accept the tagalong, regardless. Colin was a pro at making himself at home, and if somebody didn’t like it? Well, he could always drain them into oblivion. Laszlo wasn’t in the mood for being drained any further. He’d left a small bag by the front door with a few belongings (most importantly, a toothpick and pair of blue jeans), and suddenly he found himself wishing he’d just walked out onto the street and hailed a taxi instead of hanging back to offer Guillermo a position as chauffeur.


	2. All night long

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our three vagabonds leave Staten Island for Pennsylvania

They left without saying a word to Nandor or Nadja. Laszlo figured Colin Robinson and Guillermo would have access to the house phone via their little magic talk machines in case the newly-betrothed became sick of each other and Nandor needed rescuing. This was the first time he had ever left the Staten Island vicinity during one of their affairs, though, so if Nandor needed urgent help…he was on his own. _Bloody serves him right_ , Laszlo thought smugly.

He loathed the idea of sharing a carriage – let alone sitting beside _anyone_ – for even a few hours. Colin picked up on this, of course, and took the middle back seat; placing his suitcase on the left seat with a little flourish. Guillermo’s annoyed glance wasn’t lost on either of them, though Laszlo didn’t know why it was directed at _him_ , when it was Colin Fucking Robinson who had commandeered the back. Now Laszlo had to sit in the front passenger seat and deal with a mopey, heartbroken human dumpling.

Guillermo was tapping away on his little device when a monotonous voice filled the car. It didn’t belong to Colin. The talk machine was giving them directions.

“How does it know where we’re going?” Laszlo asked suspiciously.

“It’s a GPS,” Guillermo explained. “I typed in that we wanted to get to Pennsylvania, and the GPS will tell us how to get there.” He held the phone out to Laszlo, who regarded it with a superstitious fear in his eyes. Eventually he took it, carefully **,** before squinting down at the bright screen. There appeared to be a modern-looking map scrawled on it. The feminine, robotic voice told Guillermo to turn right in five-hundred metres.

“Looks like a storm’s a-brewing,” Colin noted. He rested his head on the window and stared up at a pitch-black sky. Heavy, low clouds covered the stars and moon. The air was humid and oppressive, and Laszlo noticed a fine sheen of sweat on Guillermo’s face as the human focused on the road ahead. He still looked upset; lips pressed in a thin line, eyes pointed directly ahead, brows knitted, hands clenching the steering wheel to the point they turned white. But at least the tears had dried.

Despite Laszlo’s displeasure and regret at inviting the boy, a vacation would probably be good for him. Over a decade working for a giant, pigheaded toddler without so much as a weekend off? Guillermo probably deserved to get out of Staten Island at the very least.

“So where exactly in Pennsylvania are we going?” the boy asked, breaking the short silence.

“A small town called Clairton,” Laszlo said, perking up. The very name brought back some of his fondest memories, and he allowed a small, dreamy smile to play over his lips. He came back to earth quickly enough, though. “There’s a small hotel I’m familiar with across the border, if you stay on 95. Was going to stay there until tomorrow night, then head on out to Clairton.”

“Have you got money for a hotel?” Guillermo asked.

Laszlo snorted and waved his fingers in front of him. “Why use money when you have the power of _hypnosis_?”

Guillermo glanced at him, unimpressed, before returning his eyes to the road.

“ _Yes_ I have money, you dunderhead.”

“Hear that? I think that’s thunder,” Colin piped up. “Reminds me of the time I drove across Illinois on a work trip. Conference in Chicago. I still didn’t know what it was exactly that my company did, and I still don’t…heh. Though I suspect we design and manufacture printed circuit boards among other things.”

“Please, Colin,” Guillermo snapped tiredly. “I need to concentrate on the road.”

The disembodied robot voice spoke up again, instructing Guillermo to take the third exit, and Laszlo suddenly remembered he was holding the little device. The screen had gone black at some point, and he shook the phone to see if something had come loose.

“The screen will shut off after a while,” Guillermo explained in that same tired voice. “Press the button on the side to turn it back on, if you want to look at the map.”

Laszlo pressed the button, and suddenly the inside of the car lit up. Guillermo squinted and swore under his breath, shoving his hand towards the phone and blindly feeling around for it. His hand brushed Laszlo’s in the process, and the vampire recoiled, almost dropping the phone.

“Here,” he growled, agitated, and shoved the device into his hand. Guillermo kept his eyes on the road as he effortlessly worked the screen with a flick of his thumb, hardly glancing down as he did so. Laszlo watched in envy. Was the boy trying to show off? Upstage him? Imply that humans were better than vampires because they could use modern devices? A second later the light dimmed to a more acceptable level, and Guillermo dropped the phone onto Laszlo’s lap.

“You know, you could have just handed it to me,” Colin said.

“I had it,” Guillermo muttered.

“Laszlo, you know you won’t be able to use that thing, right?” the energy vampire said. “Unlike us day-walkers, you night owls can’t use touch-screens. Weird, hey?”

Laszlo was pointedly ignoring him. In fact, something interesting had popped up on Guillermo’s screen: a small line of text beside a tiny speech bubble. It read, “That sucks, dude. I’m sorry. There’s always a ro—” The text suddenly disappeared, though the little speech bubble remained. Laszlo tried to tap on it. Nothing happened.

“Weren’t you listening, Laz-man? I told you, bloodsuckers can’t use touch-screen.”

“What was it?” Guillermo asked, ignoring Colin. He must have noticed the crease of concentration on Laszlo’s forehead and the frown that darkened his features.

“Some bloody sorcery is what it was,” Laszlo muttered. He tried tapping again. Still nothing. “Your little talk machine was apologising to a dandy over a bad blow job.”

Guillermo glanced at him with a look of bafflement. “Huh?”

“Sounds like Gizmo might be on the search for a rebound already,” Colin quipped.

Laszlo chose to ignore him, mostly because he had no fucking clue what all this modern lingo meant. He wasn’t sure what to do about this small, cursed device in his hands, either. And cursed it was; because as he stared down at the blank screen, it suddenly came to life and emitted shrill, tinny music **:**

_Tie me up like I'm surprised  
Let's role play, I wear a disguise  
I want you to park that big Mack truck  
Right in this little garage  
Make it cream, make me scream_

Laszlo almost dropped the phone in shock. “What the fuck is that!?” he yelled.

“Shit,” Guillermo hissed. “What’s the name say? N-no—on the _screen_ , Laszlo!”

_Gobble me, swallow me, drip down inside of me  
Quick jump out 'fore you let it get inside of me_

Laszlo looked down at the text. “Oh, it’s your mother. Will you tell her that her singing is _terrible_?” He raised an eyebrow, and his voice suddenly took on an amorous tone. “Though I do like the direction these lyrics are taking…”

“ _Jeees_ \--” Guillermo was trying to keep one eye on the road and the other on Laszlo. “Can you press the power button? I mean, the button you pressed before. No, not that one. Not that button, Laszlo!”

Instead of ending the call, the random button that Laszlo had pressed _answered_ it. A static image of Silvia de la Cruz’s face came up on the screen. Laszlo’s eyes went wide when the phone began to speak in muffled Spanish. He stuck the phone in front of Guillermo’s face.

“It’s for you,” he said. Guillermo swatted his hand down in alarm, and Laszlo hissed at him.

“Laszlo! I can’t see – Mama? Can you hear me?” The boy was shouting now, his face the picture of despair. Colin was in the backseat making grabby-hands for the phone. Laszlo decided to take matters into his _own_ hands, he being the foreman of their little vagabond group. He put the phone up to his ear, careful to make sure it was the right way up (he would rather be set alight and thrown down a well than appear incompetent like his halfwit housemate).

“Madame la Cruz!” Laszlo greeted chummily. “This is Laszlo Cravensworth speaking. And might I say, you have a _wonderful_ singing voice.”

“Laszlo…Cravensworth? Who is this?” Silvia asked, unimpressed. She did not sound much like she did in the song. “Where is my son?”

Laszlo had to listen carefully to understand; Silvia’s accent was strong and her English rather broken. “Gizmo is right beside me,” he explained, slowly and clearly. “But he is otherwise engaged right now. He has to concentrate on steering this carriage to Pennsylvania. Would you like me to pass on a message?”

There was a long pause on the other end of the line. Guillermo, meanwhile, was saying some kind of prayer in Spanish under his breath.

“Laszlo?” Silvia repeated.

“Yes, dear,” Laszlo confirmed.

“Will you put me on the speaker, so I can speak to my son?”

Laszlo lowered the phone and glanced at Guillermo, whose expression was teetering between impassivity and full panic. “She would like to be put on a speaker,” Laszlo told him.

“Shit,” Guillermo hissed. “Mama, I can’t talk right now! I’m driving! I’ll call you soon! Laszlo, give me the phone.”

Laszlo ignored him and put the phone back up to his ear. “I’m afraid I cannot put you on the speaker, dear. I cannot use screens. Gizmo will call you shortly, once he finds somewhere to park the carriage.” He quietly turned away from Guillermo, though when he spoke into the receiver, he did a poor job of keeping his voice low. “Listen, now,” he said amiably, before Silvia could respond. “I’m on a vacation from my wife and I _know_ how to swallow. I have no fucking clue what a Mack truck is, but I’m sure I can make you scream—”

“Fuck’s sake, Laszlo!” Guillermo shrieked. He lunged for the phone, the car veering dangerously close to the opposite lane in the process. A horn blared. Tires screeched. The phone dropped out of Laszlo’s hands, bounced off his lap, and landed on the floor. He reached down to retrieve it, grimacing sheepishly at the confused shouting coming from the little speaker. Guillermo snatched the phone out of his hand and put it up to his ear, his own hands shaking.

“I can’t talk Mama, I’m on the freeway. I’ll call you soon, okay? Love you!” He hung up in a rush and all but pegged the phone at Laszlo’s head.

“The fuck!” Laszlo yelled, blocking the projectile with a forearm. The phone fell into the centre console, where it would stay until Guillermo found a safe place to park. Laszlo waited for some kind of screeching outburst from the impudent little shit, but to his surprise, Guillermo’s lips stretched into a grin and he _laughed_. He glanced at Laszlo, saw his wide, alarmed eyes and partly-open mouth, and only laughed harder. Tears of mirth welled in his eyes and his shoulders shook, and Laszlo decided that the kid must have finally lost his mind. Twelve years spent kissing the toes of a vampire who would only end up betrothed to a lady… _my lady_ , Laszlo thought bitterly. _My lady._

“You know, that would be a good song for the next orgy,” Colin piped up. “And speaking of music, why don’t we put on some radio? There’s a great channel on AM. 946 Classics.” Laszlo had all but forgotten Colin was there, and now he groaned internally. Even Guillermo’s laughter died down upon hearing the droning voice. His eyes flicked to the side of the road for a moment, and then he turned on the indicator, before veering into a rest stop. Outside, fat droplets of rain were beginning to fall; and in the distance, the heavy rumble of thunder.

“I need to call my mom,” Guillermo said, snatching up his phone and giving Laszlo a stern look. “I’ll be back in a minute. You can find a station while you wait.”

Laszlo didn’t say anything, but Colin was quick to take off his seatbelt and reach into the front in order to play with the radio’s buttons. The static was painful to Laszlo’s ears, but probably music to Colin’s. He tried to take his mind off it by observing their outside surroundings and looking for anything familiar (aside from Guillermo of course, he thought to himself, with a tiny smart chuckle). It had been a while since he’d been Jackie Daytona, and if truth be told, he was looking forward to donning his blue jeans and hat and visiting some old friends, but he was beginning to _hate_ this road trip.

Raindrops planted themselves on the windows and streaked down, partially obscuring his view, but thanks to his sharp night vision, Laszlo could still see Guillermo standing fifty feet away beneath the tin roof of a rotunda. The way Guillermo flung his hand up in the air in frustration made Laszlo think that perhaps the boy’s mother had misunderstood his compliments about her singing, or more likely was unhappy with her son. Laszlo would be unhappy with such a disappointment of a son too, he reasoned.

“Ah, here it is,” Colin said in his ear, making him jump. “946 Classic!” The energy vampire didn’t bother trying to search for a less fuzzy broadcast, instead settling on one that was mostly static with the phantasm of Nocturne op.9 No.2 playing in the distant background like a world-weary ghost. He lingered a moment longer before sitting back in his chair with a satisfied sigh. Laszlo pinched the bridge of his nose, suddenly exhausted. Would Guillermo hurry up?

“So, why’d you bring Gizmo along?” Colin piped up, as if hearing his thoughts. Energy vampires couldn’t read minds, could they? Laszlo sighed…

“I don’t bloody well know, but I wish I hadn’t.” That wasn’t entirely true – he was very slightly relieved by the boy’s presence. At least Guillermo could act as a buffer between both vampires. Colin would likely drain Laszlo to the point of true death if they were left alone for any amount of time.

“Is Laszlo capable of feeling pity, I wonder?” Colin mused.

Laszlo ignored him. His eyes had flicked from the radio back to the rotunda, only to find it empty. He straightened his back in alarm and squinted out the window. Through the pouring rain he could make out the silvery glint of the barbecues that Guillermo had stood in front of only moments ago. He quickly glanced around the outside of the car, turning to look out the back window, while expecting the driver’s door to open at any second. But it didn’t, and the car was surrounded by nothing but rain and darkness and the bars of light from nearby traffic.

“Where the fuck is Gizmo?” he said, schooling his voice into one of calm annoyance despite the weird panic that gripped his chest.

“Supposed to be a full moon tonight. Werewolves, maybe?” Colin suggested. “I wonder, if the moon is hidden by rainclouds, can they still turn? Or it could be Bloody Mary? Did you ever figure out if you really _did_ stop that curse?”

“This isn’t the time for jokes, Colin!” Laszlo snapped. “And by the way, how _dare_ you jest about Bloody Mary. A little girl had her guts torn out because of that bitch.” He turned back to the window, hoping to see the little rectangular light of Guillermo’s talking device as he made his way back to the car, but there was no sign of it…or him. The gravelly sideroad, the rotunda, and the line of trees that partly surrounded the rest stop were completely devoid of movement. Laszlo didn’t want to act too hasty, though; if he were to rush out of the car and call for Guillermo and find him taking a piss or something, completely unhurt, he would look like a right fool. But what if Guillermo _were_ hurt? Laszlo pursed his lips in thought. He couldn’t give two shits about the boy, in truth, but Nandor did, regardless of whether he recognised those two shits or not. And he was the buffer. The _buffer_!

He was about to throw caution to the wind and open the door and start running when Guillermo’s hefty silhouette appeared by the rotunda once more. He was walking slowly; limping. There was no phone light. Something was wrong.

Laszlo opened the door anyway and hurried out into the rainy night to greet him. What he saw was a fairly shocked, roughed-up human, soaked head-to-toe in watery blood. The vampire stopped dead in his tracks.

“What the fuck happened to you?”

“They…they must have followed us…” Guillermo muttered.

“Who? Nadja?”

“ _What_? No.” Guillermo shook his head, then brought his hand up to cradle the side of it, as if he had a headache. “The Council’s men. They must have followed us. There were three of them.”

“Bullshit, we haven’t had an attack for months!”

“No, you haven’t.” Guillermo pushed past him and trudged to the Flex. Laszlo frowned at the _you_ part, and then followed him back into the confines of the car. Colin Robinson was waiting for them, sitting in the driver’s seat as if he’d prefigured the whole situation. His suitcase was resting on the front passenger seat when Laszlo opened the door. He considered throwing it at Colin, but decided that the sooner they skedaddled, the better. He took the left seat in the back, while Guillermo took the right. He was colder than usual; the rain having seeped through his clothes to the skin. Guillermo probably felt it far worse, though, being a feeble human and all.

“Are you hurt?” he asked the boy.

“No,” Guillermo said flatly. The tight expression on his face told Laszlo otherwise, but he let it go. He honestly couldn’t care less; he had more pressing concerns. He stuck a finger towards Guillermo.

“I swear boy, if you’ve been keeping attacks from us again—”

“They’re after _me_ now, not you,” Guillermo said. He was staring straight ahead, as if not really hearing him; as if he were still in some form of shock.

“Fucking hell!” Laszlo snarled. “If I’d known that these flying ballsacks were still coming for us, I never would have invited you along! In fact, I never would have left the house. Tell me now, Gizmo. Tell me the truth. Is my lady wife in danger?”

“What did I just say?” Guillermo snapped, rounding on Laszlo. “Their assassins are after _me_. Not once have they tried attacking any of you since the theatre. They won’t even go into the house. Nadja is safe. They target me when I’m out running stupid errands for you vampires.”

“How dare you!” Laszlo bristled, feeling phantom blood rush to his face. “I ought to leave you on the side of the road for your assassins **,** boy! Why the hell would you agree to come along, to deliberately put _us_ in danger?”

“Well it was a choice of putting you in danger or my own mother,” Guillermo said darkly. “You gave me the choice, Laszlo. And I’d have you killed a hundred times over if it meant—”

“You little _shit!_ ” Laszlo lunged at him, shoving him onto his back with a fangy snarl. Guillermo hit his head on the door compartment, but it didn’t seem to faze him, because immediately he was fighting off Laszlo’s clawed swipes. The vampire still had no idea what he was planning to do to the boy. He’d make a delicious snack, that was true, but Nandor would _kill_ him if he ate his familiar. That, or at least sulk for a year and remind him every damn day that Guillermo was _his_ familiar to eat, not Laszlo’s. He could throttle him a little and maybe even take a tiny sip while he was at it. Strangling a human to near-death was harmless enough, right?

He pulled his lips back further, his fangs elongating into sharper points, and plunged into Guillermo’s neck. Guillermo saw him coming, though, and a moment later something hard and sharp pierced Laszlo’s vest and blouse, prickling and searing the skin underneath. He flinched back, and looked down to find a silver stake pointed directly over his dead heart. Guillermo’s own lips were drawn back, teeth clenched. His eyes were dangerous.

“You _wouldn’t_!” Laszlo spat.

“Try me,” Guillermo panted.

They clawed and kicked and wrestled as Tchaikovsky serenaded them from the hazy radio broadcast. Suddenly the car swerved, and for a second Laszlo felt nothing but air beneath him, before coming down and hitting something hard. Outside, a car blared its horn.

Colin chuckled. “Oops! That’s why you should always wear your seatbelts, guys.”

Laszlo frowned in disgust at the situation he was now in. Guillermo was below him, squished into the space between the front and back seats, on his hands and knees with his ass wedged directly against Laszlo’s crotch. Laszlo’s chest was against Guillermo’s back and he could feel the human’s racing heartbeat, and for a fleeting moment he considered just biting him now while he couldn’t escape. But then Guillermo started grunting and squirming underneath him, and managed to shove Laszlo away with surprising force. On their knees, they glared at each other in contest, until finally Guillermo dropped his eyes. A moment later they were both clambering back to their respective seats.

“You’re bleeding,” Guillermo said, nodding towards Laszlo’s chest.

Laszlo looked down, saw the bloom of dark red seep through the small tear in his blouse and vest, and hissed. The wound was already healed; he had hardly felt it under the burning of the silver. But he was still irate. “You tore my clothes!”

“Be thankful I didn’t tear more than that!” Guillermo snapped, meeting his tone. He tucked the stake back into his jacket in a way that felt like a threat, his eyes boring into Laszlo’s. The vampire screwed his nose up and sat back, averting his gaze.

“This was my best blouse,” he grumbled.

“Let me drive,” Guillermo said to Colin. Laszlo wanted to hiss at that, but he didn’t entirely know why.

“No can do, Gizmo,” Colin said. “There’s nowhere to park at the moment. We’re doing 70 on a four-lane highway and the road is _slip-err-y_.”

“How long until we reach Pennsylvania?” Laszlo asked in the same grumbly voice as before.

“I believe we’ve been on the road for…about thirty minutes.”

Laszlo pretended to ignore that. Surely it had been longer? “Gizmo, what does your talking device say?” He refused to look at the petty human while he spoke. This vacation was turning out to be a nightmare already, and it was all the boy’s fault.

Guillermo took out the phone and pressed a button, and Laszlo noticed from the corner of his eye that the screen was split by a long, jagged crack and smeared with blood. He bit back a curse, still furious at the boy for keeping his predicament a secret.

“Where exactly are we staying in Pennsylvania tomorrow?” Guillermo asked. “Do you know the name of the hotel?”

“Red Roof Inn,” Laszlo said curtly.

“…Town?”

“Harrisburg.”

“Okay…” Guillermo kept on tapping away. The casual way in which he spoke irked Laszlo. It irked him that he even had to _talk_ to this subservient creature.

“That’s…still two hours away. Okay…” Guillermo inhaled deeply through his nose and closed his eyes, craning his head to rest it on the seat back.

“Good thing we’ve got all night,” Colin said spiritedly, tapping on the backlit radio screen that told them it was not quite eight. “ _Allllll_ night.”


	3. Hotel...Harrisburg

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The castaways spend their first night together cramped in a hotel room. Laszlo is granted the title of Duke and grabs a quick dinner. Colin enjoys the shopping channel. Guillermo begins to question his own sanity.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huge thank you to UV_DUV for beta-reading and giving lots of helpful suggestions!! :D  
> I need to learn how to tag people properly! :D

The clock had just flicked over to 10pm as they pulled into the Red Roof Inn, Harrisburg’s finest two-star hotel. Colin had insisted on driving as slowly as possible on account of the blustery storm, and most of the way he zipped in and out of lanes, cutting off other drivers, his eyes glowing vibrant blue the entire time. There was nothing in the world quite as appetizing as an angry motorist.

“I’ll get the rooms tonight,” Guillermo offered. He didn’t feel like arguing over money – money he wasn’t even sure existed. “But tomorrow – _you_ pay, Laszlo.”

“ _Rooms_?” Laszlo replied, his eyes going a little wide. “No, no, no. There will only be _one_ room, Gizmo.”

Guillermo exhaled as calmly as possible through his nose. “I said I’m paying for them.”

“We have multiple fucking assassins after us thanks to you! No, you will stay with us and protect us.”

“He’s got a point,” Colin piped up, much to Guillermo’s dismay. “Safety in numbers.”

Guillermo didn’t bother mentioning, once again, that the vampire assassins were only after _him_. He was tired, sore and feeling dejected, and just wanted a bed to sleep in…even if it meant sharing one with an energy vampire, or the 17th century Duke of Douchedom.

“I’ll see what they have,” he mumbled, before leaving the car and hurrying to the reception building, hunched over in a vain attempt to keep the rain from soaking him through. He came back out a hundred dollars poorer, with a single key dangling by a large white rectangle, and thoughts that this road trip had been _terribly_ planned. Well, it hadn’t really been planned at all.

Colin had, of course, moved the car while Guillermo had been inside the building. He’d found a vacant park outside of some poor sap’s door and allowed the headlights to shine through the window. By the time Guillermo found the Flex, he was soaked to the bone. He threw the back-passenger door wide open.

“You can’t park here,” he hissed to Colin as he climbed into the back seat. “Our room is number 7.”

“All right, all right,” Colin mumbled. He flashed the lights at the window for good measure before reversing out to find their room’s parking spot.

After five minutes of searching (and Colin driving painfully slow around the parking lot), Guillermo led them into their little room. And little it was. The two doubles took up most of the space, nearly touching the small laminate table on the opposite side of the wall that made up the rest of the room’s furniture. At the table sat two chairs with worn, stained upholstery. Above the table, bracketed into the wall, was an old flatscreen; dusty and dented and not much bigger than Guillermo’s laptop screen. On the far end of the room was an open sliding door that led to a murky bathroom. The most important thing, however, was the lack of windows. It really did have the feel of a two-star motel, and even _that_ was being generous, but it was worth it if it meant Guillermo wouldn’t wake up to a pile of ash tomorrow morning – God only knew how many other vampires he’d already condemned to hell.

He dropped his bag onto the bed closest to the door and rummaged for some clean clothes to take into the bathroom. The rain had brought with it a heavy, oppressive humidity that, despite his soaked clothes, still managed to seep the moisture from his skin and leave him thirsty. It was late spring, yet the air back home had still been clinging to its wintry bite, so Guillermo had packed clothes that were probably warmer than necessary. He pushed a thin sweater aside, a pair of thermal pants, a scarf, and ended up settling for a pair of boxer-briefs and plain white tee. He carried them, along with his toiletry bag, in outstretched hands as he left his bed, careful not to contaminate them with his current blood-stippled outfit. He hardly took notice of the exchange between the vampires as he approached the sliding door, nor was he awake enough to care about the bits he _did_ hear.

“You will be sleeping with the boy. There is absolutely no way that I’m sharing a bed with you, Colin.”

“Then share with Gizmo.”

“Ha! I’d sooner share with you.”

“Well, I guess he and I are gonna be bed buddies, then.”

The shower was lukewarm, but felt wonderful. Guillermo scrubbed off the blood and mud and allowed the water to stream over his face and into his mouth, washing away the bits of grit in his teeth and the dirt on his tongue – rewards from his muddy fight. The assassins had been easy enough to slay, but not without a tussle over sloshy ground. He was getting far too used to it, really; to the point it was now a mundane task like finding virgins and disposing of their drained bodies. But he knew how dangerous it was to let his guard down. The only silver lining to the aftermath of the _Nouveau Théâtre des Vampires_ was that the baddies were no longer after his housemates…no longer after Nandor.

Why did he still care about them? About _him_? He felt betrayed by Nandor, which was stupid because there hadn’t been anything romantic or otherwise between them. But more so, he felt betrayed for Laszlo…which was even more stupid. He cared about his vampire housemate – and the man’s wife –as much as someone usually cares about their average housemate, yet he’d continuously risked his life for them both. And why? A weird spell of dizzying anguish overcame him as he suddenly realised just how alone he was. Without Nandor and the house he’d called home for the past eleven years, Laszlo and Colin seemed like strangers. He was stuck in a strange motel, with two strange men, headed to an unfamiliar part of the country. Headed into an unknown future. Guillermo suddenly felt very homesick.

He stayed in the shower until the water ran cold, then dried himself, dressed, and brushed his teeth and hair. He left his bloodied clothes in a pile in the bathroom to scrub at later (he already knew it would be a vain attempt). The anger and adrenaline he’d felt upon leaving Staten Island was now wearing off. He no longer felt snappy or headstrong; in fact, if Laszlo asked him to go jump off a cliff right now, he probably would. That sinking feeling was still with him when he slid the door open and stepped into the dull light of the bedside lamp. What he saw made him drop his head with a small groan. Strewn across the floor, across the beds, across the table, were his belongings. Bundles of socks, underwear, balled-up t-shirts, one can of deodorant teetering hazardously on the edge of a seat. Laszlo and Colin had claimed either bed and were laying back, one arm each behind their respective heads, their poses mirrored. Laszlo had unbuttoned his vest and pulled his collar loose, and his shoes were for some reason sprawled on Colin’s bed.

“I’m fucking telling you, Colin Robinson, if you don’t get the sorcerous wand with the buttons, I will throw Gizmo’s dildo at you.”

“And I’m telling _you_ , Laz-man, it’s called a remo—wait, dildo?”

“Let me view the televisual apparatus, Colin!” Laszlo stuck his free hand lazily into Guillermo’s bag and felt around blindly. He spotted Guillermo just then, and his hand stopped. If he expected some kind of heated eruption from the boy, he never got it. Guillermo was shocked into stillness; a look of disbelief on his face. After a long moment, his eyes wandered to the nightstand between the beds, where the thin black remote sat.

“It’s…right _there_ ,” he said, gesturing tiredly to the device. He couldn’t sound exasperated even if he’d tried. He trudged through the room, picking up his belongings, feeling as though his eyes were going to drop out of their sockets every time he bent over. Finally he snatched the bag away from Laszlo, who still hadn’t removed his hand, and repacked it. Laszlo groaned and reached over to take the remote.

“It has been so long since I’ve slept in a cot such as this,” he said wistfully, squinting at the various remote buttons.

“Weren’t you in Pennsylvania only a few weeks ago?” Colin asked.

“Which button do I press, smart-arse?”

“Throw it here. No don’t peg it— _yow_!” Colin grabbed for the rebounding remote and rubbed the red mark blossoming on the side of his head.

Guillermo zipped up his bag, blushing furiously at the thought that Laszlo had spotted his toy. Or at least felt it during his rifling. _Why_ had he thought wearing boxers and a tight shirt would make good pajamas? He suddenly felt very naked.

“You two can sleep together,” he huffed.

“Hah! I’d rather receive a prostate exam from a bear, while simultaneously being fellated by a piranha,” Laszlo said distractedly. He was engrossed in some kind of melodramatic Spanish soap opera on TV and obviously wasn’t taking the boy seriously. Guillermo threw his bag onto the floor and schooled his face into something hard and assertive. This was _his_ bed, and he was going to sleep in it. Alone.

Without another thought he climbed onto the mattress and sunk into the comfortable pillows, all the while staring at the ceiling. From the corner of his eye he saw Laszlo’s expression distort into an outraged grimace, and Guillermo suddenly had the crazy urge to laugh. He considered the possibility of Laszlo effortlessly shoving him out of bed, so he quickly climbed under the covers and pulled the tight sheets and loose blanket to his chin. He pretended to watch TV, and waited.

Laszlo lasted all of three seconds before snarling and leaping out of bed. “I’m going hunting,” he spat. He stormed over to the door, flung it open, and then grumbled something before going back to pluck his shoes off Colin’s bed. Once he was gone, Colin switched to the weather channel.

“Never seen the guy so flustered,” he said in an amiable, if not coy tone. “This whole thing with Nadja and Nandor must be really grating on him.”

Guillermo almost asked Colin to not talk about _that_ , but then thought the better of it. It was probably best to just ignore him. He rolled over to grab his cracked phone off the nightstand where he’d left it, only to find it gone. His heart skipped and he shot Colin a look of contempt.

“Was keeping it warm for you,” the energy vampire quipped, and tossed the phone to him. When he saw the irritation on Guillermo’s face, he added, “Laszlo threw it at me. Don’t worry, I didn’t snoop. Much.” Colin was harmless enough, but it still irked Guillermo that he had most definitely been rifling through his messages, his photos, his… _oh no_ …

As if reading his thoughts, Colin piped up again. “You’re not a bad writer, Gizmo. You ever thought about writing a novel? Heck, with how many words you’ve got written on that little thing, you could just change everyone’s names and publish it as an erotic. That genre is pretty big on Amazon, you know.”

 _How much did he read while I was in the shower?_ Guillermo wanted to groan. During the trip he’d considered (more out of spite than concern) deleting the first-person epic he’d written about all the ways he and Nandor could pleasure each other once Nandor turned him. What was even more dangerous…he’d also written a few thousand words fantasising about walking in on Nandor and Laszlo in the middle of a romp. He wasn’t attracted to Laszlo, definitely not, but there was something about walking in on two guys fucking – and maybe even being dommed by them, maybe even Eiffel-towered – that got him rather hot and bothered. Right now, he was hot and bothered for all the wrong reasons: he was utterly mortified. The room suddenly felt too small. Far too stuffy. It was getting harder to breathe.

 _Calm down. No panic attacks. Oh my god…how much did he_ read!?

“Oh, also, you’ve got a couple of new messages,” Colin added. “They won’t show up as notifications because I read them. Well, I read one of them – the one in English. Cory? Cody?”

“Colby,” Guillermo muttered bitterly.

“I can’t read Spanish but your mom doesn’t sound happy.”

“Thanks, Colin.”

[ ](https://ibb.co/ZgRJ23P)

Guillermo slid his phone onto the nightstand and let out a loud sigh. One look at the first line of text from his mother and he’d decided to leave that issue until the morning. His conversation with Colby was safe, at least, and made him feel a little more grounded. A little less disoriented. It was weirdly comforting knowing that outside his own life and his own sudden dilemmas, the world was still spinning. And a few people still cared about him (including his Mama, even if she seemed rather displeased with him). He allowed those thoughts, and a warm bed, to lull him into a light, dreamless sleep.

He had slept a full half-hour before a heavy, sudden dip in the mattress stirred him from his slumber. He was facing Colin’s bed, his arm draped over the side of his mattress, his body teetering dangerously close to the edge. Colin was presently watching the late-night shopping channel and no doubt soaking up useless information to bore his companions with at a later date.

But Guillermo wasn’t concerned about that right now. What he _was_ concerned about were the various sounds coming from beside him: low murmuring, ruffling, the wet, unmistakable sucking noises of two people lightly kissing.

_Oh no._

A flurry of spite and chagrin and apprehension came whirling through Guillermo’s head and down into his chest. He was discombobulated; frozen in place. The quiet, playful moans and unintelligible mumbling belonged to two voices; one was deep, masculine, and all-too familiar. The other had a lighter, feminine lilt that he was completely unacquainted with. Had Laszlo brought his dinner back to the hotel room? Or was this dessert?

Guillermo silently swallowed the bile that had risen in his throat and shut his eyes tight in the hope that some kind of dizzy spell would overcome him and cause him to black out for the next half hour. That, of course, never happened. When the bed began to rock, Guillermo clutched the side of the mattress, more out of embarrassment than fear of falling off (in fact, falling out of bed would be a welcome distraction at this point). Soon Laszlo and his partner (dinner?) were panting heavily above the loud _slap, slap, slap_ of skin and the obscene squelching noises that, much to Guillermo’s dismay, were beginning to stir something searing and primal in his loins. He couldn’t remember ever experiencing a boner quite this awkward.

At some point he opened his eyes, only to find Colin Robinson laying on his side, blankets up to his chin, smiling at Guillermo with glowing blue eyes. For once he was actually grateful, as creepy as it was in this situation, to be fed on. The sooner Colin drained his aggravation and humiliation, the sooner he could pass out and forget all about this ordeal…at least until morning. These thoughts helped him to relax a little, and drown out the noises beside him. He closed his eyes again and tried to focus on Colin’s draining.

A loud, muffled groan from Laszlo immediately snapped him from his repose, and something hot and wet splattered against the back of Guillermo’s neck. “Oh, fuck this!” he shrieked, and shot out of bed to race into the bathroom. He hardly noticed the wet, gurgling noises from the bed; nor did he hear the accompanying slurps. He grabbed a towel from the rack, feeling the warm trickle of… _something_ …down the back of his neck, and began to wipe frantically at it. The towel came away stained red, and Guillermo’s heart slowed just a fraction in relief.

It wasn’t what he’d _thought_ it was, at least.


	4. Cabin Fever

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Colin holds up a Subway. Laszlo loses his shit more than once, and Guillermo is painfully thirsty.  
> AND THEY'RE ONLY A DAY INTO THEIR ADVENTURE! :D

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huge thank you to UV_DUV for beta reading again!! And a huge thank you to readers of course, y'all keep me writing these ridiculous boys <3

Guillermo awoke in a dingy room on a cold floor beside a pile of towels (one of them smeared with a generous amount of dried blood), and for a moment he didn’t know where he was. His heart leapt into his throat and he sat up quickly, ignoring the crack of his spine as it relieved itself of the hard floor. The room was dim, but he could make out a grimy shower with yellowing glass walls and a small stained toilet. Suddenly the memory of last night came hurtling into his skull. His heart leapt higher into his throat.

He pushed the mortification of Laszlo's late-night feeding to the back of his head as he stood and leaned heavily against the sink. The faucet creaked in protest as he forced the pipes open. Ice-cold water burst out and he scooped it into his hands, splashing it onto his face in an attempt to shock himself into wakefulness. It didn’t help much. When he looked up into the faded, chipped mirror, the face that stared back was a mess.

Guillermo had resigned himself to sleeping in the bathroom last night, rather than face the bloody atrocity that Laszlo had no doubt made with his dinner. He’d piled some towels on the cold tiled floor and laid down with a pained groan. His tussle with the vampire assassins had left him aching, with approximately six hours to enjoy whatever sleep he could snatch before sunrise.

Now, as he reached for his glasses, he vaguely wondered where the nearest coffee shop was. But that would have to wait, because he had cleaning to do, and judging by the sizable squirt against his neck last night, there would be a _lot_ of it. Despite the change of scenery, this was an unfortunately common routine; such was the life of a familiar residing with lazy horndog vampires that were just as frisky as they were hungry.

So it was much to his surprise, upon exiting the bathroom, that the little grungy hotel room was completely free of cadavers – and also minus one energy vampire, who had apparently already risen to greet the day. The room held a faint metallic scent, but other than that there were no signs of blood. The wall beside the bed was freshly-wiped, the linen on the mattress new and neatly-made (and holding one frowning, sleeping vampire, whose hands were crossed over his chest in a way that Guillermo had found so endearing on Nandor). The little light that managed to filter through the thin cracks at the edges of the door was diffuse enough to be of no concern to the slumbering vampire, but it was bright enough for Guillermo to see his face. Laszlo’s sleep appeared to be a restless one, judging by the way his brow twitched, by the lines in his forehead, and the way his top lip occasionally curled up in a fleeting snarl, showing a gleaming white fang. On his chest, his pale hands jerked into claws and then relaxed again, and as Guillermo watched, Laszlo’s bare toes curled and twitched, and he let out a little whimper before making a few suckling noises that had Guillermo stifling a giggle. Only then did he realise that the vampire was _dreaming_. And judging by the subtle movements of his hands and the little smacking of his lips, he was dreaming about feeding.

Guillermo swallowed the laughter and focused on the annoying way in which Laszlo was unwittingly disarming him; he wanted to take the opportunity of Colin being away to wake the vampire and politely, calmly, set some _boundaries_ with him. He tried to stretch out some of the ache in his muscles; pulling his arms behind his back and shutting his eyes with a pained frown as several of his bones popped back into place. Then he cleared his throat loudly, hoping to gently rouse the vampire from his sleep. It didn’t work. He approached the bed, gave an even louder _ahem,_ and waited. Much to his dismay, Laszlo had stilled completely and now seemed to be sleeping even _more_ soundly. He thought about Colin Robinson suddenly slinking in through the door (which, thankfully, was far enough away to not send sunlight spilling all over Laszlo’s bed), and was filled with a sudden urgency to get it over with; without the energy vampire in attendance. He sat down beside Laszlo’s deathly-still body, and gingerly put a hand on his shoulder.

*************

Colin Robinson was feeling rather hungry as he dialed the number from memory and leaned an elbow against the counter at Subway, squinting at the backlit menu boards with a grimace, as though he couldn’t see perfectly well behind his wide spectacles. In his ear came the clicking noise of a receiver being lifted, and then staticky hollowness. Several seconds later, a cautious but familiar voice filled the speaker.

“…Yes?”

“Nandor, my man!” Colin piped up, a grin spreading across his face as he regarded the bored sandwich-maker in front of him. “Listen, did you want the uh…Italian herbs and cheese, or the multigrain?”

“Colin Robinson?” Nandor’s voice was suddenly distant, and Colin pictured him standing with the receiver at arms-length, his face contorted in utter perplexity. “How did you get into this small contraption? Have you been cursed?”

A middle-aged lady behind him cleared her throat and Colin turned and raised a finger to the growing queue; _one sec!_

“Oh, you want the 9-grain?” he said into the phone. “And Nadja? How is she?”

“Is this Bloody Mary?” Nandor asked suspiciously, his voice suddenly much louder, much closer to the receiver. “Are you pretending to be Colin Robinson?”

“You really ought to get a better phone, Nandor,” Colin said. “Y’know, a smart phone? Then I could video call and _show_ you all the menu options. I don’t want to have to go through every type of salad, but I _will_ —”

There were more than a few groans in the queue. The sandwich-production line had come to a complete standstill. Three workers now looked at him with empty, hooded eyes. His own eyes shone blue.

“NADJA!” Nandor’s sudden yell had Colin squinting and holding the phone away from his ear. “NADJA! BLOODY MARY HAS TRAPPED COLIN ROBINSON IN THE TELLY-CONTRAPTION.” A pause, and Nadja’s distant chatter, and then, “I THINK HE WANTS US TO RESCUE HIM, NADJAAAAAAA. WE NEED TO GET A SMARTER PHONE.”

Colin was about to lend his friend more encouragement when the phone began to beep, beneath the sound of the vampire couple’s chattering. “Oop,” he said, “I got another call coming through, I better get this, Nandorino. But I’ll call you back soon about the bread.”

Several more groans from the queue. Somebody turned and stormed out. A sandwich maker opened her mouth to speak, but Colin turned around to face the window. He didn’t move from his spot at the head of the queue, though. This restaurant was quite a banquet. He peered down at the flashing screen and was surprised to see the name GIZMO written in bold type across the display. He hummed with curiosity as he swiped, then put the phone up to his ear. He couldn’t get a single inane greeting in before Guillermo began screeching into the speaker.

“HE’S TRYING TO _EAT_ ME!”

Colin startled, glanced at the waiting queue, and then ducked his head. “Who’s trying to eat you, Gizmo?” he asked in a calm, dull voice. “An assassin?”

“LASZLO! COLIN HOW—HOW DO I---ARGHHH—”

Colin let out a sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose beneath his glasses. “You didn’t wake him, did you? Where are you now? Where is Laszlo?”

“I’m hiding…using the table as a shield…” Guillermo’s voice was strained and somewhat distant, as if he’d thrown the phone down beside him. Animalistic snarls rang out through the speaker, almost drowning the human’s words.

Colin forgot all about his breakfast. He finally broke away from the queue. Several people sighed. One man in a suit applauded.

“Am I on speaker?” he quickly asked.

“Y-yes—”

“Laszlo,” Colin said loudly, firmly. “Laz-man. Listen to me. Do _not_ eat the human—” that earned Colin a few cautious stares. Colin bit his lip and hurried from the restaurant, bursting out into the cool spring morning. The city of Harrisburg was bustling; waves of pedestrians coming and going, in their bland suits and colourful dresses and various uniforms; people hurrying to work; men courting ladies, and ladies walking dogs, and dogs chasing kids, and kids chasing pigeons, and pigeons shitting on men. The circle of city life. Humans going about their daily businesses completely unaware they were being hunted by energy-leeching creatures of the day. None of them aware that across the river, a man was battling it out with a true bloodsucking nightwalker.

All of this flittered through Colin’s head within a quarter of a second as he staked out the street and slunk into an empty alley where he could talk without having the police called on him. “Laszlo,” he said in a quiet but stern voice. “If you eat Gizmo, I’ll have to find somewhere to stash his body, and I’ve already cleaned one of your messes today.”

“I don’t…think…you’re…helping…” Guillermo said, his words punctuated here and there with screams. “Please just get here quickly!”

“ _Shit_ ,” Colin hissed, and hung up. He hurried to the parking lot and jumped into the Flex, muttering curses to himself the whole time. He really did not want to dispose of another body today, and he _really_ did not want to deal with the aftermath of Nandor losing his beloved familiar of twelve years. Colin wasn’t an emotional vampire; there _was_ a limit where a person’s misery started to sour their energy and make them unappetizing; sometimes downright nauseating. And, as much as he hated to admit it, he didn’t mind having Gizmo around, and not just because he was an easy feed, what with his terrible crush on Nandor and all. The little guy had definitely pulled Nandor into line over the years, and his presence was always noted, like a nicely-aligned stack of fresh papers, or a particularly shiny stapler.

These thoughts ran through his head as he sped down Progress Avenue, occasionally blaring his horn and running red lights for good measure. Three minutes later he was pulling into parking bay 7 and simultaneously flinging his door open. From outside, all he heard was a bang or two and a muffled cry. He opened the door a sliver and slunk through. The dim room was a warzone: pillows and blankets and clothes and several wooden stakes strewn across the floor; empty vials of holy water scattered here and there. A splintered stake had somehow taken up residence in the TV screen.

Guillermo lay beneath the little table, holding it on an angle out in front of him, its gleaming laminate surface gouged with deep gashes. Around him was a half-completed circle of salt (did salt even work on bloodsuckers? Colin couldn’t remember). Laszlo was on the table, pushing all his weight onto it, elongated fangs flashing while he clawed hungrily at the once-smooth surface that was serving, temporarily at least, as the roof of Guillermo’s safehold. Colin’s eyes had barely adjusted to the darkness before Laszlo spotted him and snarled. Guillermo used his assailant’s lapse in attention to his advantage; kicking the table against the vampire and then throwing, with all his might, the silver crucifix he’d been clutching in his sweaty palm.

It should have been stopped by Laszlo’s chest – or at least slowed and come out bloody on the other side, judging by the speed and intensity of Guillermo’s throw – but suddenly the air was thick with dust-like particles, bouncing off the negative-silhouette of somebody who had been standing there a split-second ago, and the shiny cross continued across the room unbloodied. It lodged itself in the plaster above one of the beds, just as a little black shape crossed its path and dove for Guillermo’s head.

Guillermo ducked, bracing for the attack, but Laszlo simply swooped him. Bat-Laszlo was no match for slayer-Guillermo, after all. The human leapt to his feet and grabbed for the creature, eliciting a loud squeak as Laszlo quickly fluttered out of harm’s reach. Guillermo proceeded to chase the critter around the room with his arms outstretched, hands grasping air, shins coming dangerously close to upturned furniture. Colin shut the door and leaned back against it, crossing his arms, unsure whether to feed or just bask in the hilarity of the scene before him. At one point, Bat-Laszlo decided to take a poorly-calculated risk, and turned on Guillermo, burying himself in the human’s hair, scurrying down the back of his neck, biting him here and there while Guillermo shrieked and flailed. Guillermo threw himself on the bed in a desperate attempt to crush the bat, but Laszlo was too quick and escaped from his collar. He fluttered towards the upturned table and then _poofed_ back into his human form.

“And _that_ is why you do not wake me,” he announced, pointing an admonishing finger at Guillermo. “Laszlo wakes on his _own_ terms.”

Guillermo, panting, mouth open in a panic-stricken grimace, simply turned to look at Colin with wide, terrified eyes. Colin shrugged, casually scanning the room’s damage.

“I’m not cleaning up this time,” he said. “I have a Subway to drain.”

*************

“I wanted to talk about last night,” Guillermo said, stooping down for another stake and then nestling it in the crook of his arm with all the others. “That’s why I woke you.”

“You don’t wake a bloody vampire while he’s sleeping,” Laszlo snapped. He was relaxing on Guillermo’s ex-bed while he watched the human clean. “I almost had you in my _teeth_.”

Guillermo scoffed; pointed a stake at the vampire. Laszlo made an offended noise and bared his fangs, but the human ignored him. “I was playing with you,” he said smugly, “I could have staked you at any time.”

“You had to call Colin Robinson for help!”

“Because I didn’t want to kill you!”

Laszlo huffed, his lips curling down into a petulant frown. “So what is it, then? What is so important that you had to risk your life to tell me?”

Guillermo bundled the wooden stakes into an old shirt and stashed them in his duffel bag. “Firstly, I didn’t _know_ you were going to try to kill me—”

“Has Nandor taught you nothing?”

“Nandor never turned a baby into a vampire.”

“Now why bring that up, boy?” Laszlo snapped. “What does that have to do with me very nearly gutting you?”

Guillermo eyed the cracked television now. Bit his lip. This one-night stay was going to cost him a _fortune_.

“I’m just illustrating your tendency to be…raving mad,” he said to the empty space in the TV’s reflection, where Laszlo should have been laying. Guillermo’s reflection was missing too; replaced by a jagged fissure where the stake had hit the screen. He sighed and turned around to face the vampire, leaning back against the wall and sliding his hands into his pockets as casually as possible. “Last night you brought somebody back,” he began, cautiously, “and you slept with them…in the same bed as me.”

Laszlo screwed his nose up and squinted at him like he was an idiot. “And you think it was important to wake me and tell me this? I was there, you fucking dolt! I was the one doing the deed!”

“Could you _please_ just not have sex in the same bed I am trying to sleep in?” Guillermo implored, exasperated and beyond exhausted.

“I thought you were asleep.”

“Really?” Guillermo scoffed. He was bristling now; his insides beginning to simmer. He felt his face heat up, and he quickly bent over to pick up the TV remote and replace it on the nightstand. His back complained in several places. “Did you really think a person capable of sleeping through all that noise you were making? The bed was rocking like a fucking boat!”

Laszlo gave a one-sided shrug. “Sounds rather soothing to me.”

Guillermo saw red. He hurled the remote at Laszlo’s head with such speed that the vampire didn’t even see it coming. It cracked against his forehead and drew blood. Laszlo leapt onto the bed, his boots dirtying the sheets as he hissed viciously at Guillermo.

“How dare you!” he bellowed, eyes darkening and fangs lengthening again.

“How dare _you_!” Guillermo yelled back, picking up an empty vial and pegging it at the vampire.

“ _G-ah!_ Stop throwing things! You little shit, I will _bite_ you!”

Guillermo scooped up his pouch of salt and flung it at Laszlo. Laszlo jumped out of the way and held up his claws.

“Fucking bite me, then!” the human taunted, beckoning with his hands. “Come on!”

Laszlo snarled and lunged for Guillermo. One superhuman stride was all it took to knock the man over, and suddenly Guillermo was on his back, being straddled by a murderous, black-eyed bloodsucker. He let out a strained moan and tried to kick himself free, but Laszlo was pinning him by the shoulders, digging unnaturally-sharp claws into his shirt, into his feeble human flesh, while he snapped his fangs and growled inhumanly. Guillermo desperately tried to search what little floor he could for something sharp, but he’d already tidied up the stakes. Laszlo surrounded him; crushed him; a literal dead weight sucking the air from his lungs. He looked up into the vampire’s demonic eyes with a mix of annoyance and supplication.

There was a knock at the door.

Laszlo froze. Guillermo held his breath. They stared at each other, the inky blackness draining quickly from Laszlo’s eyes. A few seconds later a muffled, feminine voice filled the room.

“Hello? Everything okay in there?”

Laszlo hissed some curse and scrambled to his feet, Guillermo impatiently prodding him the whole time until he was free. The vampire dashed for the bathroom just as Guillermo dashed for the front door. He opened it a slit and peered out onto the covered doorstep, where the middle-aged receptionist who’d handed him his key last night now stood.

“Hello! Fine!” he said breathlessly, opening the door a little more, as casually as possible. The adrenaline coursing through his veins had numbed his nerves, so he was not aware of the puncture-wounds in his shoulders from Laszlo’s talons, nor did he notice that his white shirt was slowly turning scarlet.

“We got a complaint from next door,” the woman (who did notice) said in her nasally voice. “They seemed a little concerned. Lots of screaming and banging?”

Guillermo swallowed the lump in his throat and willed his hands not to shake. “Yeah that was just…uh…”

“Kinky sex!” Laszlo bellowed through the bathroom door. “Very kinky sex!”

Guillermo’s face went bright red and he cleared his throat with a little bashful smile. The lady did not look amused.

“ _Well_ ,” she said dubiously, her hard, beady eyes flitting behind Guillermo’s shoulder, as if trying to look into the room. “Just try to keep the noise to yourselves, okay? I don’t want the cops around here.”

“Gizmo does! He likes being cuffed! Hah!” That was Laszlo, from the bathroom. Guillermo shut his eyes, stifling a groan. When he opened them again, he gave the woman with the scraggly blonde hair an amiable smile and a nod.

“We’ll keep the noise down. Promise.”

The woman eyed him suspiciously before saying, “Alright, then.” She looked pointedly at his shirt (just as Guillermo began to feel the trickle of something there), and then turned and left the doorstep. Guillermo let his breath out through his teeth. He shut the door quietly and made an assessment of the room. There wasn’t much he could do about the ruined TV and wall, nor the scratch-marks on the table (maybe it would be better to dump the table, rather than try to explain what a tiger was doing in their room), but the rest of the room was coming back together. Laszlo snuck out of the bathroom a moment later, lip curled and eyebrow raised in a haughty smirk. Guillermo simply glared back, but silently scolded himself for the smug feeling he got knowing that _he_ couldn’t be hurt by sunlight.

That thought led to another one: namely his bloodied clothes still laying in a heap in the dirty bathroom. He had the whole day to waste, and it was probably best if he wasted it _away_ from a grumpy, slumberous vampire.

“I’m going out to find a laundromat,” he said, schooling his voice into something bordering on friendliness. “Need anything washed?”

“Yes,” Laszlo said. He began to unbutton his vest, and Guillermo quickly busied himself with picking out clothes for the day.

“So, do you agree with…what we talked about before?” he asked after a little while, flinching involuntarily like a child who has just sworn in front of his good Christian mother.

“Which part, boy?” Laszlo said curtly.

“A-about not bringing your dinner back to the hotel room.”

“You’re whining as though you had to clean up after me,” Laszlo complained.

Guillermo bundled his clothes up, stood erect, and glared at Laszlo. He instantly regretted it. The vampire was down to his cotton drawers.

“Here,” Laszlo said, neatly folding his trousers to place beside his neatly-folded vest and blouse and a doublet that he hadn’t even been wearing. He sat down on the mattress and went to work on his boots and socks. Guillermo found himself embarrassingly frozen to the spot, appraising the mostly-naked man before him. Laszlo had enough body hair to rival Nandor. Thick and dark, but also endearingly curly, it carpeted his chest and made a trail down the small rolls of his belly, widening out beneath his navel. Guillermo’s eyes roamed further down, to the hem of his underwear, and to his appall he found himself wishing he could see more.

_You are so fucking thirsty, Memo,_ he told himself in disgust.

To Laszlo he stuttered, “Okay, well, I’m uh…yeah…just l-leave your things there and uh…”

“Righto,” Laszlo said distractedly, assessing the current state of his left sock (there was a small bloodstain near the ankle).

Guillermo made a beeline for the bathroom and slid the door shut with a too-loud bang. He was suddenly trembling all over; the sleepless night, the adrenaline-fueled fights, the close-call with the receptionist and the near-painful confusion in his groin all befuddling him to the point he felt faint.

The sooner they got out of this dingy motel room and hit the road, the better.


	5. (We Are) The Road Crew

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The trio arrive in Clairton, PA. Laszlo hooks up with a hot tub. Colin watches public access TV.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope people are enjoying this fic so far!! All the feedback has been wonderful, thank you! Special thanks again to UV_Duv for beta-reading, and teaching me all about cheap American hotels! XD

“So, anyone special we’re meeting up with in Clairton?” Colin asked from the backseat. “I gotta admit, I’m pretty intrigued to find out where _Laz-man_ escaped to after that situation with Jim.”

Laszlo ignored him and turned to Guillermo instead.

“Did you make sure to eat human food before disembarking?” he demanded. “The last thing we need is you passing out behind the wheel.”

Guillermo turned to look at him, eyes wide in a way that made Laszlo wonder if he still had leftover gore in his beard from dinner. He dabbed at his chin with the collar of his coat.

“Yeah,” Guillermo said curtly, before focusing on the road again.

“Good, because it is a long journey.” Laszlo twisted to finally address Colin. “How long is it?”

“Three hours or so,” Colin replied. He couldn’t help but add, “So, Laszlo? Anyone special?”

Laszlo was tired and ill-tempered after the day’s fiasco, but he decided to humour Colin Robinson nonetheless. He was feeling uncharacteristically generous. “If you’re wondering whether or not I have a hussy on the side waiting for me in Clairton, the answer is _no_.” He put up a finger in thought. “I do, however, have a women’s volleyball team.”

He couldn’t see Colin’s reaction, but he saw Guillermo’s clear enough. The boy raised an eyebrow, either confused or thoroughly impressed. Laszlo decided it had to be the latter. He’d considered apologizing to him for the whole almost-killing-him thing, but then tossed the thought aside because fuck that. Guillermo should have known better. And then to _demand_ that Laszlo not bring his dinner home? To not fuck his dinner in a bed that had rightfully been his? He bristled at the memory and began to tap some arbitrary beat on the passenger door’s armrest with his fingers. He felt even more antsy than usual. He missed Nadja. He was already tired of Colin. The boy was being a nag. He’d had a terrible dinner (and fuck) the night before; some tramp picked up outside a club whose shadiness would rival that of the Sassy Cat.

Yet he knew he wouldn’t sleep well tomorrow knowing there was a risk the stupid boy would wake him again, so he swallowed down his spite and leaned back against the seat, assuming an air of casual arrogance as he gazed out the window at the young night.

“Regarding what we spoke about earlier today,” he said, hoping Guillermo would cotton on to his discretion, and the fact that Colin Robinson was listening behind them. “After some thought I have decided to heed your… _advice_.” He gritted his teeth.

Guillermo’s shoulders seemed to sag a little in relief, but that was the only reaction given, aside from a, “Thank you.”

Colin didn’t seem interested enough to comment. Or perhaps he didn’t get the chance, because a moment later the human was speaking again.

“You mentioned you have money,” he said in a cautious, uncomfortable tone.

“Yes,” Laszlo said boredly. He was, in fact, very bored, and talk of money was always a tedious affair. “I have enough for a room.”

“Okay, but…” Guillermo paused and began to worry his bottom lip with his teeth.

Laszlo rolled his eyes. “Out with it, boy.”

“Well, what comes after? We don’t know how long we’ll be away for. Would it be cheaper to rent out a holiday apartment? How much money do you even have?”

Laszlo smirked. “Boy, I have enough money squirreled away in my luggage to _buy_ us a fucking house if the need arises.”

“Heh.” That was Colin. “Laszlo, what time period are we talking here, in terms of house prices?”

Laszlo shrugged. “I don’t know. Last time I looked at purchasing an abode was in the roaring twenties. I was going to surprise Nadja with a little cottage, but she 'didn’t like the vibe'. I told her I could just get her a new one. Vibrator, I mean, but she still refused me. Needless to say, the sale never went through. But I doubt things have changed much since then.” He waved a hand dismissively.

” _Hoo boy_ ,” Guillermo sighed.

“Well, I have…” Colin trailed off, and a bright blue light filled the car. Laszlo turned to glare at him, but the energy vampire’s attention was on his little smart-ass device. After a few moments, he piped up again. “…Uhh, two-thousand, three-hundred and fifty-five dollars and twenty-nine cents in my account. Wait, no. Make that two-thousand, three-hundred and forty-eight dollars and sixty-five cents. One of my transactions hasn’t cleared yet.”

“What do you even spend your money on, Colin?” Guillermo asked, and the snappiness in his voice had Laszlo stifling a snort.

“Well, that six sixty-four was a nice tie I picked up this afternoon at Missions. Charity stores are a smorgasbord; it’s like retail, but they don’t get paid.”

“Okay, but you have a job,” Guillermo continued, “and you don’t pay the bills. You don’t need to eat. Where does all your money go?”

“Stocks,” Colin simply said.

Guillermo sighed. “Of course.”

“Well, what does your purse look like, Gizmo?” Laszlo interrupted.

The human’s face slowly changed at that. Slackened; became less tense. He seemed to lighten a little, and there was a noticeable sparkle of amusement in his eyes. He bit his lip in an attempt to control his expression, but Laszlo didn’t miss the ghost of a shit-eating grin that flittered across the boy’s face.

*******

“You little _shit_ ,” he spat, glancing over the screen that Guillermo had stuck in front of his face. They were still in the car, in the parking lot of Jefferson Hills Motel – a considerably fancier hotel than the one in Harrisburg. It was nearing eleven, and a mist was beginning to rise off the cooling tarmac.

“Wow.” Even Colin seemed somewhat impressed by the hefty figure on the screen. “Where’d you get that sort of money, Guillermo? The semen business isn’t _that_ lucrative. Unless you’ve been offering your own services…”

“Hah!” Laszlo chortled.

Guillermo shot Colin a look of contempt, but couldn’t help the blush that crept up his neck. “Actually,” he said, in a surprisingly smug voice, “I happened to have a seven-hundred-year-old wealthy, successful warmonger for a master these past eleven years…who was also really bad at keeping inventory.”

Laszlo gaped at the boy. “You _stole_ from Nandor?”

Guillermo lifted his chin and set his jaw stubbornly, holding Laszlo’s shocked gaze in a silent but rather unnecessary challenge; Laszlo wasn’t angry with Guillermo…he was _impressed_. “How do you think I’ve paid the bills all these years?” he said defensively. “Nandor hasn’t missed anything I’ve pawned. He’s got more jewels than a Tiffany’s.

Laszlo wasn’t entirely sure who Tiffany was, but the boy’s words rang true. Nandor enjoyed flaunting his jewelry every chance he got, and he had a _lot_ of it; however, if he’d noticed any of it missing, he hadn’t marched around the house demanding where it had gone any time recently.

Laszlo handed the phone back to Guillermo, and with it a small piece of admiration. The boy must have noticed the fascination in his eyes, because he let out a chuckle, which was also a half-sigh of relief.

“You know, Guillermo,” Colin said thoughtfully. “It never occurred to me that you could just…take a few of Nandor’s old things and leave. Use them to buy a nice house; retire young. Heh. Live the dream, as they say.”

Guillermo’s expression soured in an instant. He turned the phone screen off, sat back, and stared out the windshield at the hotel’s faint lights.

“I guess the heart wants what the heart wants,” he whispered.

*******

He’d driven them to the Jefferson Hills Motel under the belief that they wouldn’t have a problem finding a quadruple room. So when Colin came out of the reception building swinging a key to the Honeymoon Suite, Guillermo audibly groaned, rubbed his eyes, and fast-tracked his way through the Five Stages of Grief.

It was a cramped room; a little _too_ cozy. One wall was made of haphazardly-spaced stone bricks, its yellows matching the warm hues of the furniture and the rich browns and reds of the décor, which was of questionable aesthetic. The one queen bed was neatly-made and featured a thick off-white quilt that Guillermo wanted to just drown beneath. Survival optional.

The pièce de résistance was a hot tub in the bathroom. One look at it and all of Guillermo’s grievances about allowing a rather-insistent Colin to purchase the room tonight suddenly dissolved. If he fell asleep in the tub, which was on the cards, then that would sort the bed issue. Again: survival optional.

Guillermo had dropped his bag on the little dining table and was about to search for pajamas when Laszlo came ambling out of the bathroom, his investigation into the strange bathing machine now complete. Hands in his pockets, exuding a casual air (which was always tinged with an underlying predatory tension, Guillermo was starting to realize), he surveyed the room.

“Blinds,” he said with distaste, eyes falling on the large window by the bed. “Are they made of fucking _paper_?”

“We’ll put some blankets up,” Guillermo tiredly assured him. “And move the bed somewhere safer. Just in case.”

Laszlo snorted at that, scanning the room as if to say, _where?_

“You could always sleep in the bathroom, Laz-man,” Colin piped up, a little snidely. That surprised Guillermo, who raised his eyebrows. Had Colin just alluded to Laszlo forcing him into the bathroom last night? Had Colin Robinson just _defended_ Guillermo?

Laszlo didn’t need to think on that one. He went straight to the single cupboard in the room and flung the doors open. A blanket practically toppled into his arms, as if eager to escape. He handed Guillermo one end, and silently they went to work covering the wide window with whatever backup linen they could find. Afterwards, they dragged the bed to the other side of the room, where a rather pathetic excuse for a kitchenette was situated.

They both celebrated their exercise in health and safety by falling onto the bed, simultaneously, without realizing the other was going to do the same. There was a moment’s awkward silence where both human and vampire lay side-by-side while experiencing considerable rigor mortis, and then Laszlo all but rolled off the bed. He stood and made a show of dusting off his freshly-laundered outfit (he’d actually donned the doublet tonight), while Colin watched on with the faintest blue in his eyes. Even the energy vampire looked sapped, though. Or perhaps that was just Guillermo projecting his own tiredness onto the faces of his companions.

“I plan to slumber at four on the morrow,” Laszlo spoke up suddenly. “So you have until then to complete your rest, boy. I will wake you.”

Guillermo didn’t bother biting back his riposte this time. “And if I stake you?”

“Hmph.” Laszlo turned to Colin Robinson. “You don’t require sleep, do you?”

Colin shrugged. “I can sit in this nice leather swivel chair here and watch the contemporary arts lineup on WHYY.” He gestured to a random office chair that had been, for whatever reason, placed near the bed. Guillermo briefly wondered, with a little disgust, how many of the hotel’s kinkier honeymooners had consummated their marriage on that thing. He doubted it was deep-cleaned as often as the bedlinen was changed. Colin, being Colin, couldn’t stop there. “You know, if you both just tamped down on the deep-seated toxic masculinity and shared the gee-damn bed, you could sleep to your heart’s content.”

Guillermo plucked out his pajamas (again, a t-shirt and boxer briefs, although this time the shirt was black along with the boxers), purposely ignoring Colin. It was a sound idea, but he knew the energy vampire had only suggested it for the feeding potential.

“Ha!” Laszlo shouted, as he was wont to do when thoroughly amused by something. “I’d rather use a chili pepper as a dildo while hot-waxing my ball sack.” Guillermo rolled his eyes and bundled his clothes and toiletry bag under his arm. The action seemed to catch Laszlo’s attention, because a second later he was looking at Guillermo with an unreadable expression. “Where are you going, boy?”

“For a bath,” Guillermo said.

“In the tub contraption?”

“Yes. The tub contraption.” He was exhausted, and Laszlo’s grating voice and prying ways were not helping his sour mood. He tried to psychically emanate this as he made his way to the bathroom. To his dismay, Laszlo followed him inside.

“Show me how the contraption works,” he demanded. “It is not like the tub at home.”

“That’s because it’s a _hot tub_.” Guillermo tossed his pile of clothes and little bag onto the bench that housed the sink, and gave himself a quick appraisal in the mirror. He looked the part of somebody who had just been sitting in a car for hours with an energy vampire and a pompous prick.

Presently, Laszlo was running an index finger over the lip of the tub, as if assessing for dust. “It doesn’t feel very hot, boy.”

“Can you not call me _boy_?” Guillermo tore his eyes away from the mirror. “It sounds weird.”

Laszlo furrowed his brow in confusion. “Are you not a boy?”

“Guillermo. My name is _Guillermo_. And I’m a thirty-year-old man.”

“So a boy, then,” Laszlo said impatiently. “Talk to me again when you’ve reached five-hundred. Now tell me, how does this contraption work?”

Guillermo repressed the urge to throw the ceramic shell-shaped soap-holder at Laszlo’s head and instead began to fill the tub with steaming water.

“These little buttons here control the jets,” he explained tiredly as the tub slowly filled. The door was still open, but the room was already beginning to steam up. Despite the warm weather, he welcomed the sudden stifling humidity. The condensation cleared his sinuses and the tension in his shoulders dissipated a little, as if preparing for the relaxation to come.

Once the waterline was above the jets, he pressed a button and demonstrated the purpose of the air holes. The motor was deafeningly noisy, and the water suddenly began to boil, and Laszlo made a surprised “huh!” noise and jumped back.

“What is that sorcery!?” he cried.

“Air,” Guillermo simply mumbled.

Once Laszlo’s curiosity was satisfied, the vampire left Guillermo to his ‘sorcerous bathing’. Guillermo welcomed the warmth of the water as it gently lapped against his chest. He’d decided to forego the jets in favor of not getting a migraine from the noise. Arms stretched out either side of him, he lolled his head back on the built-in headrest and closed his eyes and _exhaled_. He was bathed in a cocoon of heat that seeped into his aching muscles and caressed his chafed skin and cushioned his sore ass. Endorphins flooded his body, warming him from within. When his intrusive mind tried to imagine what Nandor was doing right now, he quickly fled from the thought and instead focused on the pandemonium of the day…which, weirdly enough, was a less stressful thing to think about.

Unfortunately, _these_ thoughts only led back to thoughts of Laszlo, and those thoughts led to one thought, and that one thought was the memory of the way the vampire’s eyes had glinted with…with _something_ (Guillermo didn’t want to call it affection, or even warmth) …after his admission of fencing Nandor’s ancient jewels. That memory dissolved eventually, only to be replaced by the memory of Laszlo undressing in front of him. And _that_ memory began to warp and stretch in his head until he was dreaming up a scenario that was definitely not as innocent and routine as an oversharing vampire getting his clothes ready for washing.

He let out a little, upset groan and frowned.

Not Laszlo.

_Anybody_ but Laszlo.

In fact, thirsting over Laszlo was about as appealing as thirsting over Colin Robinson. Didn’t the vampire have a necrotic dick or something? Guillermo tried thinking back to the orgy, but couldn’t recall ever spotting it in the grand ocean of cocks. So instead, he tried to imagine the most disgusting, smelly, gangrene penis possible, in order to get his own very much _not_ -necrotic penis to start behaving.

After a while, the hot steam began to dissipate, and the cold crept back into Guillermo’s muscles, and he was tired and flaccid and had the leftover mental images of a leprosy-riddled dick stuck in his head and he just wanted to cry. He used the cheap complementary hotel soap to scrub himself all over, before emerging from the hot tub feeling like there was a ton of solid lead in his core. He dried, dressed, brushed his teeth and hair, put on deodorant, gave himself a half-hearted pep talk in the mirror, squeezed a pimple, lamented over the length of his canines, and then left the room to face the music (which, at present, felt like some kind of discordant mix between jazz and thrash metal).

Colin was in his seat, watching the local public access channel, wherein a man was using a planer on a solid piece of timber. Laszlo was hovering around his little haversack that sat open on the bed. He was down to his long johns (which was at least less-revealing than his drawers had been last night) and picking out a loose blouse and another pair of long johns, identical to the ones he already wore. It struck Guillermo just then, watching the vampire buckle his bag shut again, that he’d witnessed more of Laszlo’s vulnerable, domestic side in the past two nights than he had in the eleven years he’d lived at the house. Then again, he’d almost had his jugular torn out as well, so there wasn’t much weight to the thought.

“Time to test out this heated tub,” Laszlo announced, mimicking Guillermo’s earlier action of bundling his clothes under his arm. “If the pipes get clogged, it wasn’t me.”

Guillermo didn’t hide his look of disgust as his eyes followed Laszlo (and his rather pert ass, perfectly contoured within the thin, clingy material of his underwear) into the bathroom.

_Wow, Memo,_ he thought with even more disgust. _You need to get laid._

******

Even through the wall, the noise of the spa was giving Guillermo a headache. Could Laszlo just not be annoying for _five minutes_? He was beginning to rival Colin Robinson.

In fact, the energy vampire was being uncharacteristically quiet tonight. It wasn’t like him to become so enraptured in late-night TV that he couldn’t give a running commentary on what he was watching.

“Oh, you got a few messages,” Colin said after a while, not tearing his eyes from the tedious, repetitive movements of the carpenter’s carpentering.

Guillermo didn’t bother getting up for his phone. “What were they?” he asked, knowing full-well that Colin already knew.

“Your mom asked you to call her. I Google-translated that one. And Cory asked how your day was. Asked if Laszlo has calmed down.”

Guillermo scoffed half-heartedly at that. “Colby. I don’t think Laszlo knows the meaning of _calm_.”

As if to defy him, the noise of the hot tub’s motor ramped up, and Laszlo drew out a long, pleased “ _Ahhh_.”

“Corby also offered you a room again. Said he’d love to have you stay, and that his girls are fine with it. Sounds like he might have a little crush on you, Guillermo.”

Guillermo hardly noticed that Colin had used his actual name; he was on his feet in an instant and racing towards the nightstand where his phone sat. It was an impulsive move and an even more impulsive decision but he’d already made his mind up before opening the message. _Yes, I’ll come back and stay with you, Colby. It has to be better than this. Anything has to be better than this._

He tapped on Colby’s number in his inbox and looked at the most recent message, before furrowing his brow in confusion. Then he glanced at the above message, and the message above that, and then the chain of messages above that, and his heart sunk into his stomach.

[ ](https://imgbb.com/)   


“Hey,” Colin said, putting up his hands in a placating gesture. “Don’t look at me. You think I’d compliment Laszlo’s dick?”

Guillermo’s face was red-hot. He glared daggers at the energy vampire, and when he spoke (through gritted teeth), he could almost taste the venom on his saliva. “Laszlo can’t use a touch-screen—”

“—He _can_ if he has a stylus,” Colin decided to point out, rather unnecessarily.

“He also wouldn’t use the word ‘crusheroo’, _or_ allude to the fact that he has had sex with a dead goat thinking it was his wife.” He raised his eyebrows in a gesture of, ‘ _really, dude?’_

Colin shrugged thoughtfully. “Let’s just say it was a joint effort, then.”

“ _Why_?” Guillermo almost tossed his phone in the air in his exasperation. “You both realize I am very good at killing vampires, don’t you?”

“You’re also very good at being delicious,” Colin countered, in his usual monotonous way. “I’m not sure if it’s because you’re a vampire slayer, or just the saddest, most emotionally-conflicted human I’ve ever met—”

“—Wow.”

“—But you have some pretty potent energy up for the taking.” He screwed his nose up slightly as he contemplated. “Very…sweet, but tart. Like a fruit pie. I admit I don’t have much of a sweet tooth but if you imagine a pie with a really thick crust—”

“This is creepy.”

“ _Gah! Fuck!”_ That was Laszlo, his voice loud but muffled by the bathroom door and the spa jets and the heavy heat within. Guillermo was up in an instant, heart suddenly in his throat. His first thought was to grab the stake on the nightstand. “ _Gizmo_ !” Laszlo yelled. “Gizmo, what the _fuck_!?”

Guillermo almost stopped upon hearing his mispronounced name. He _almost_ considered just sitting back down and allowing the vampire assassins to slay Laszlo right there in the tub; it would make for an easier clean. But then he heard the sounds of a slippery struggle against the plasticky tub, and remembered there were no windows in the bathroom, and decided he better check it out. A “ _Help_ !” and a “ _I’m being attacked!”_ from Laszlo sealed the deal.

Laszlo, being Laszlo, hadn’t bothered locking the door. Guillermo walked inside, still clutching the stake (though rather loosely at his side), and surveyed the confusing scene before him. Laszlo was in the tub, clutching the side of it, peering up over the lip with a worried brow. Guillermo eyed his attacker, which happened to be a five-foot-tall wall of white suds engulfing him on all sides.

He shook his head. “Laszlo, you know the soap can’t hurt you. How much did you squirt in there?”

“Soap?” Laszlo glared daggers at the little (now empty) complimentary bottle of shampoo on the lip of the tub and grimaced. “You mean that _wicked_ lubricant?”

“Lubri--? _Oh my god_.”

Laszlo hissed at Guillermo’s blasphemy, then let out a very un-Laszlo-like whimper. “This cursed tub is trying to eat little Laszlo! You have doomed me, _Gee-agh-mo.”_

Had Guillermo been any less tired, he may have laughed, or even left him there for a while in order to torment the asshole. Instead he bowed his head, wiped the condensation off his glasses, and tried to release all his pent-up frustration in one long, calm exhale. Then he approached the tub, careful to keep his eyes averted (though there was no way he’d see anything beneath all those bubbles), and felt for the switches on the little console on the side of the tub. He managed to pick the right button first go. The roar of the engine weakened to a purr and then stopped completely; the bubbling water finally going still. Guillermo quickly stood back and bit his lower lip in discomfort.

“So…unless you’re hung like a bull, you should slip free once you’re…uh…” he stuck up a finger, then crooked it to demonstrate.

“And what if I _am_ hung like a bull?” Laszlo quipped with an arrogant smirk, unable to help himself.

Guillermo was not impressed. “Then it’ll be a case of draining the bath and lubing you up,” he said flatly. His numb brain did not even have the energy to send blood to his cheeks. He put a hand to his head, feeling his migraine worsen all of a sudden. “You can’t _still_ be…you know.”

“Hard as a rock,” Laszlo announced proudly. He pulled himself up until his shoulders peeked out over the rim, and Guillermo saw his entire face now, and he stifled a snort. The tips of Laszlo’s wet beard were peppered with soap foam, and presently he wore a baroque-style wig made of bubbles. With a frown he set his knees against the bottom of the spa and wiggled around a little before lifting himself more and showing his full chest; his carpet of hair there was soaked through and dripping water and suds. Guillermo had to stifle all sorts of things this time.

“Doesn’t it hurt?” he asked hesitantly, leaning against the doorframe, though why he was still in here he didn’t know. Something told him Laszlo wouldn’t let him leave until he was free and safe.

“Of course it hurts, you fool!”

“And yet you’re _still_ …?”

“Well, it’s not a bad pain,” Laszlo said, and again, despite the rather unfortunate circumstances, the shit-head still managed to smirk. Guillermo _did_ go red this time. He made for the doorway.

“Look, all you need to know is that the bath isn’t trying to eat you. You and, uh, _little_ Laszlo are safe, okay? So just…try and…” Guillermo could feel himself getting stupidly flustered and even more brain-scramblied, “…Do you just want me to get you some lube?” He was out the door before Laszlo could suggest anything else. His glasses were fogging up again and he could hardly see a thing.

Colin was still in his chair, leaning back at a rather perilous angle while he watched TV.

“Got his dick stuck in a jet?” he asked without looking around. “Yeahhh I kind of saw that one coming. If you’ll excuse the pun, heh.”

It took everything in Guillermo’s being not to roll his eyes. They were getting sore from all the eye-rolling, not to mention the exhaustion. Part of him was tempted to just grab his own tube of lube, but with Colin Robinson within eyeshot, that was probably a terrible idea. Instead, he went to Laszlo’s bag, that he was willing to bet housed several varieties of the stuff. The vampire was severely lacking in clothing, it seemed. He pushed aside various bits of fabric, what looked like a small padded case, a Ziplock bag containing Laszlo’s wealth, and…

His fingers brushed leather and Guillermo froze. An icy chill crept down his spine and fizzled out into his stomach. His throat clenched. He was almost too afraid to pull it out, to bring it into eyesight and thus fully into existence. But he did, and as he lifted it up, Colin glanced over and let out a perturbed, “Oh no.”

It was the cursed hat.


	6. Curses and Blessings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Colin comes into some luck, and proves his suaveness with the ladies. Laszlo escapes the hot tub. Guillermo is still sleep-deprived.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: brief animal death (I purposely did not go into much detail in the fic, but as a warning I will say that a random stray dog gets hit by a truck).
> 
> Once again, HUUUGE thank you to UV_Duv for beta-ing and giving awesome suggestions as usual! And another HUUUGE thank you to my readers, I hope you've been enjoying the fic, your comments and kudos give me life! <3
> 
> (Hopefully Word hasn't destroyed the formatting...if there are any weird mistakes, just ignore lol)

“What the fuck do we do with it?” Guillermo asked in a hush.

“Put it back,” Colin droned. “In fact, it’s probably a bad idea for you to be holding it.”

“Put it _back_?” Guillermo echoed, his eyes wild. “Don’t you think I should…take it out and throw it in the dumpster or something? Get rid of it?”

Colin humored him with a thoughtful hum. "Sure, you could. But a car could run over you in the parking lot on the way over, or you could be crushed by a falling tree, or a victim of senseless gun violence, or..."

*****

"Okay I get it,” Guillermo groaned. Had this cursed hat single-handedly caused every dreadful thing that had happened during their brief road trip? Why had Laszlo decided to bring it? Was he so heartbroken by the thought of (temporarily) losing his wife to another man that he’d decided to set out on a suicide mission?

“We need to do something, Colin,” Guillermo said decisively. “Even if we just hide it somewhere; somewhere where Laszlo won’t find it.”

“Laszlo will find it,” Colin said with a jaded sigh. “That man has a seventh sense when it comes to that hat. Besides, the hat found _him_ last time.”

“Shit.”

“Guillermo! Did you find the lubricant!” Laszlo called from the bathroom.

Guillermo had found five tubes, all of varying sizes and shapes. He tried not to consider why Laszlo would use what he thought had been “complimentary hotel lube” instead of his own assortment. He tossed the hat at Colin, who caught it on impulse and then grimaced with regret.

“Get rid of that thing,” Guillermo hissed, before randomly snatching up a tube of “ _Gold Titan-Gel Powerful Penis Enlarger Lubricant for Men_ ”. Guillermo frowned. After dealing with witches, Guillermo knew that enchanted gel could have pretty dire consequences. He spotted a simple tube of KY and went with that instead.

*****

It was well past midnight when Colin took the cursed hat out into the parking lot. He stalked past the lineup of cars and further out into the middle of the tarmac, and then scanned his surroundings for somewhere to dump the wicked thing. The highway was mostly free of traffic, and there was little noise from the hotel rooms. Somewhere down the road, a dog barked on and off, gruff and deep. In the immediate vicinity, the crickets were having a rave. Noisy neighbors, they were.

He was sure there’d be a dumpster somewhere on the lot, or if not here, then the restaurant down the road, across the highway, that he’d spotted earlier. But Laszlo was a gee-damn bloodhound when it came to sniffing out that damned thing. Maybe destroying it _was_ the only safe option. Maybe he could light a discreet fire somewhere and hope that he wouldn’t be killed in the process – or accidentally responsible for half of North America burning down…

A high-pitched, feminine shriek rang out through the still night air all of a sudden, and Colin startled. All manner of witches and banshees and fairies went flittering through his mind as he waited, frozen in place, for what the cursed hat had summoned this time. The hotel architecture was a squared, upside-down horseshoe (was that good luck or bad luck? Colin wondered absently), and from the furthermost side of the building came a gangly black shape. It bounded happily towards Colin, its excited whimpers broken up here and there by playful growls. Colin was thoroughly confused. The dog – some medium-sized, nondescript brown mutt – flung a bulky satchel at the energy vampire before practically leaping into his arms. A surprised ‘ah!’ escaped Colin and he jumped back, the claws of the creature digging into his favorite beige sweater. In one rather impressively fluid motion, the dog snatched the hat from Colin’s fingers and took off with it at full-speed.

“What the…” Colin muttered to himself, watching the mutt make a break for the highway. 

“You… _little_ …” came a breathless voice; one that shared the same feminine lilt as the shriek. Colin tore his eyes away from the dog just long enough to see a woman’s silhouette break away from the shadows and stop at his side. He listened to her puffing as he looked back at the dog, now standing expectantly in the middle of the road.

The truck came out of nowhere.

A horn blared, long and obnoxious, accompanied by the loud, hollow screeching of brakes and the slide of tires. It was too late, though. The semi-trailer hit the dog, came to a bumpy halt, sat there for a few seconds, and then continued on.

“Oh my _god_!” the voice beside Colin cried.

“That your dog?” Colin asked, and for the first time he glanced to his right and tried to make out the lady’s features. She was short and slight, with a shock of red hair and pale, freckled skin; the type of person who looked as though they were made of paper and apt to be picked up and carried along by a gentle breeze.

“No.” The lady shook her head. “But still…oh my _god_.”

“I don’t like that word,” Colin muttered.

The lady looked up at him, and Colin couldn’t see the color of her eyes, but he would remember their large, almond shape and how fine her lashes were. “God?” she questioned.

“Please don’t say it.”

“Oh…okay…” She sounded rather upset, but then made a little squeaky, “oh!” and bent over and retrieved her handbag. “You rescued it!”

“Actually, the dog dropped it there and took off with my hat.”

“Oh, well, I’m sor—”

Colin put up a finger to silence her. “Wait here,” he said. He walked slowly, carefully, over the tarmac and onto the highway, looking both ways before bending over and peeling the hat off the road. It was blessedly free of gore, though unfortunately the dog was not; Colin tried not to look. He also tried not to think about how the hat seemed to be drawing him in. He quickly strode to the relative safety of the hotel’s parking lot and assessed the hat for damage. It was regaining its previous, non-flattened shape.

“Wow,” the lady said, “that sure is a hat.”

Colin hadn’t really noticed that he’d joined her side again. “It’s got a curse on it,” he explained. “Trying to think of a way to destroy it. Apparently ten tons of metal and rubber won’t do the trick.” He once again scanned the parking lot, and then found his eyes going back to the lady who was still standing there, looking at the hat and worrying her bottom lip, as though racking her brains for an appropriate response. _Why is she still here?_ Colin wondered impatiently. She was wearing heels and a tight, knee-length dress; its somewhat revealing bodice modestly covered by a fluffy bolero.

A succubus? Nymph?

Colin was suspicious. Maybe it was the way she hopped from foot to foot, or the way she kept playing with the hem of her bodice, tugging it in an attempt to cover the little upper slopes of her breasts…either way, the energy vampire surmised that she wasn’t used to this kind of outfit. But something about her was playing with his nerves, and he didn’t like it.

She was absolutely _radiating_ anxiety and fear and discomfort, and yet it seemed untouchable. What little iotas that Colin _could_ sample were sour enough to make him feel queasy. She wasn’t an emotional vampire, or an energy vampire. But she was different, somehow.

And since she wasn’t saying anything, and the tension in the air was making _Colin_ feel weirdly awkward, he broke the silence with, “So, uh, you need a ride or something?” He realized he was still clutching the hat, and thought about dropping it on the ground, but then thought that that might cause some kind of earthquake.

“Oh! No,” the lady said, flustered. “Thank you for the offer, but I live close by. I’m sorry. I should be going.” She made an act of fidgeting with her bag. “Sorry, I’m just a little rattled. Bad date.”

Colin looked down at his watch. “At 1am?” he queried in his usual monotone.

“Okay, so he never showed up,” the lady said in that breathy voice that made Colin wonder if she was asthmatic. “And I waited around on the doorstep of the restaurant, even after they shut. But then that dog came along and I chased it down the highway _in heels_ and now I have blisters and that’s why I’m still standing here babbling.” She gave a shaky laugh. Colin just stared at her, deadpan.

A coppery glint behind the woman’s heels caught his attention. “Oh look, a penny,” he said. Stuffing the hat under his arm, he took a wide berth around her to fetch the shiny coin. He lifted it to the faint light of a nearby streetlamp and squinted at it. The coin was more gold than copper in the light, and featured a glinting angel that was…painting on an easel in front of a cockerel? “Oh, it’s not a penny.”

“May I see?” the lady asked cautiously. “I collect coins and…oh _wow_!” One glance at the relic and she all but snatched it from Colin’s hand, and even in the dark he could see her face light up, and he was pretty sure now that her eyes were green. “Excuse my French, but _bordel de dieu_! This coin is 20 francs, 1895, featuring the angel. This was before they designed the rooster coin…but look! There is a little rooster, can you see? It looks in mint condition. _Wow_!”

Now it was Colin’s turn to feel flustered. Within his extensive knowledgebase of the mundane, there was very little regarding the history of coins. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt this uncomfortable. He wanted very much to turn tail and go back to the hotel room, but then the lady looked up at him with such wonderment that he froze stupidly on the spot.

“This coin is worth, well, at _least_ five hundred American dollars. But in this condition…wow, there’s nothing in my collection like this.” She sighed longingly, then held it back out to him. Her eyes looked very sad. “You know, people carry these angel coins on them, as talismans. They’re said to bring good luck and protection.”

The weird feeling in Colin’s stomach only worsened at that. _Said to bring good luck_. He glanced at the coin, and then down at the hat, then back at the coin; pondering. Finally, he shrugged. “You keep it,” he said.

The lady gaped at him. Her eyes were definitely green; a sad, pale green, like what long grass looks like on a grey, overcast day. “Oh no,” she groaned. “I couldn’t. This is your lucky find.”

Colin shrugged uncomfortably. He didn’t want to make a big deal out of it. “It was closer to you, so uh, I guess you were meant to find it.”

The lady’s mouth wobbled, which did not help the queasy feeling in Colin’s stomach. “Thank you,” she half sobbed, and clutched the coin protectively to her chest. “This is…wow…the perfect ending to a terrible night.” She grimaced all of a sudden, and glanced briefly towards the highway, remembering the poor dog.

“Okay, well…” Colin stuck a thumb behind his shoulder, “…I should probably make sure Laszlo freed himself from the hot tub.”

“Oh! Oh no, I’m so sorry, that’s...” she trailed off, blushing furiously. She didn’t need to say anything more; Colin knew exactly what she was thinking.

“Ah, we’re not together,” he said quickly. “In fact, I’ve got my money set on Laszlo boning Guillermo by end of next week. Anyway, I better go.” He spun on his heel and stiffly made his way back to the safety of the car-line.

“Okay, well, hope to see you around!” the lady called from behind, and Colin could almost hear her waving. He didn’t turn around. His stomach was doing unpleasant, tingly things. But more importantly, the hat…he was still holding the hat. And he had no intention of letting go.

*****

“Why…are you still holding the hat?” Guillermo uttered as Colin entered the room. He’d successfully managed to throw the tube of KY at Laszlo’s head, then departed the bathroom and slammed the door behind. A few minutes later and Laszlo had yelled, “Aha! Freedom!” and then opted to take a shower. He was still in there, and Guillermo really did not need to think about him undoubtedly finishing off in there. He’d decided to commandeer the bed while he still could; throwing Laszlo’s haversack onto Colin’s chair passive-aggressively.

Presently, Colin looked a little dazed, which was unlike him. “There was a dog. And a woman.”

Guillermo raised an eyebrow “Is that what took so long?”

He brought the hat out from under his arm, and Guillermo flinched. “The dog stole the hat, and was pretty much immediately flattened by a Mack truck. I took the hat back, and found a rare coin. Also, the woman got her handbag back.”

“Huh?” Guillermo stared at him. “Did you hit your head? Was it the hat? I told you to—”

“I want to try something,” Colin said, suddenly perking up as if waking from a daydream. “Gizmo, take the hat.”

“Hell no!” Guillermo spat, sinking further back on the bed.

The bathroom door slammed open just then, and the look on Laszlo’s face told them that he _knew_ what was going down out here. He looked at them from under a thick, low brow; his lips drawn back in a grimace.

“The _fuck_ are you doing with my hat?” he snarled.

Guillermo bolted upright in bed. “What the fuck were you thinking, bringing it with you?”

“Well I couldn’t keep it at the house. If Nadja found it, she’d throw it out. And if Simon found it?”

“Isn’t Simon dead?” Guillermo countered.

“Tricky one, that Simon. Hard to say,” Colin mumbled. He tossed the hat at Laszlo, who caught it easily in one hand. “Laz-man, put the hat on. I want to see what happens.”

Laszlo eyed him warily. “You know very well what happens.” Yet he still obliged, because he loved this hat, sewer-vampires be damned! Hat fixed firmly to his head, Laszlo spread his arms, took a step forward, and spun in a slow circle, his lip curled in a smirk. A second later the wardrobe fell on him. “ _Gah_ , shit!” Laszlo groaned beneath the heavy oaken structure and began the tiresome endeavor of wriggling out from underneath it. Neither of his companions bothered to help. Colin bent down and snatched up the hat. He put it on his balding head, and Laszlo hissed at him, but there wasn’t much he could do because he was still pinned by a six-foot freestanding armoire.

“Now…” Colin said, but he never got to finish his sentence, because a split-second later there was the sound of shuffling paper, and all eyes moved to the crack under the door and the small slip of paper that somebody had just mysteriously pushed through. Laszlo and Guillermo looked at Colin. Colin looked at them. There was a moment where the room seemed to freeze; even the TV was too quiet. And then Colin walked to the door, swept down, and picked up the thin white leaf. He read it over, and Guillermo noticed something flash through his eyes – something that was probably the energy vampire’s equivalent of excitement.

“This Sunday: Pennsylvania Performing Arts School presents: Cats: The Musical.” He flung the pamphlet onto the nightstand and stabbed it with a finger for emphasis. A delighted grin spread over his face. “A performing arts school, performing _Cats_. Imagine the stage fright; the nervous students; their bored, cringing parents. This is the feast of the _year_!”

Guillermo had never seen Colin Robinson so enthusiastic; even his voice had lost some of its usual humdrum flatness. Sure, it seemed like a fulfilling night out for an energy vampire, but Guillermo suspected there was more to his excitement than that. He thought back to Colin’s brief (and rather jumbled) story of the dog and the woman and the coin.

_The dog took the hat, and was hit by a truck._

_Colin took the hat back, and was rewarded with a rare coin._

_Colin gave the hat to Laszlo. And, well…_ Guillermo glanced down at Laszlo, who was almost clear of his second attacker for the night.

_Colin took the hat back. Got a pamphlet, at 1am, for an energy vampire banquet._

“You think the curse works in your favor,” Guillermo guessed.

“Bingo.” Colin pointed a finger at him.

“That’s bollocks!” Laszlo grouched. He stood up finally and stretched, frowning deeply. Then, unnecessarily, “Fucking armoire fell right on me.”

“Because you were wearing the hat,” Colin said, also unnecessarily.

“Again, bollocks!”

Guillermo sunk back into the mattress and stared at the ceiling. “So what you’re saying, Colin, is that all this _curse_ bullshit will stop happening if you keep the hat on you?”

Colin shrugged. “Seems so.”

“I still think we should destroy it,” Guillermo said firmly.

“No!” Laszlo and Colin chorused, and then proceeded to glare at each other.

“I’m too tired for this shit,” Guillermo groaned. He made a big show of peeling back the covers and wriggling underneath and pulling them up to his chin. _Just try to drag me out of this heavenly bed_ , his eyes challenged. “Laszlo, will you at least let Colin hold the hat for now?”

Both vampires continued to glare at each other. The thing is, Colin Robinson could go a long time without blinking. So eventually Laszlo blinked and looked away in defeat; directly at Guillermo.

“You have until 4am,” he reminded him, as if to punish the man for his insolence.

“That’s less than three hours!” Guillermo whined. “Why the hell do you need fifteen hours of sleep anyway? You’re a vampire.”

Laszlo shrugged. “What else am I supposed to do during the daylight hours?”

“I don’t know, fuck the hot tub? Maybe if you used _actual_ lube next time…”

Laszlo pointed a finger at him and opened his mouth, then shut it, then opened it again. Finally he growled, “I can’t decide whether to be impressed or bedeviled by your sass, boy.”

“I’m not leaving this bed until 7am, at the _earliest_ ,” Guillermo said. He gave a stubborn grunt and rolled over to face the kitchenette, leaving no room for argument.

“Unlike Guillermo, I know how to share,” Colin quipped with a grin. “How’s abouts you and I tag-team the swivel chair?" He was still wearing that fucking hat.

Laszlo simply glowered at him.

*****

Guillermo didn’t get to sleep in until seven like he’d planned. Shortly before sunrise, he was quite literally socked in the face by a stockinged foot. Laszlo had snatched up the other half of the bed, but his general dislike towards Guillermo dictated that he must sleep at the opposite end. And he was an active sleeper, especially for a vampire. Guillermo shoved Laszlo’s foot away with the side of his head and frowned, smacked his lips, and sunk back into a half-sleep. A moment later Laszlo’s foot came wandering back; his toe stroking Guillermo’s cheek. Guillermo growled sleepily. Laszlo responded with some unintelligible mumble, and a second later absolutely _walloped_ Guillermo in the cheek.

“ _Fuck,_ what!?” Guillermo yelled (or tried to, but his voice came out a drowsy slur). He rolled out of bed with a whimper, hand going to his bruising cheek while the other felt around for the lamp switch.

“That’s good,” Laszlo mumbled from somewhere in dream-land.

Guillermo wanted to cry. His sleep had been restless and light despite his exhaustion. It had been a long time since he’d enjoyed the luxury of a deep, unbroken slumber. He trudged over to the mini fridge to pour himself a glass of chilled water. Colin was snoring loudly on the swivel chair. Still wearing that fucking hat.

“Don’t go,” Laszlo mumbled sadly, his voice thick.

Guillermo raised an eyebrow at him. “I’m just here,” he said.

“He doesn’t love you like I do…” the vampire knitted his brow in worry, “… _Nadja_ …”

_Oh._ Guillermo felt a sudden pang of sorrow for the vampire, and this time he didn’t bother trying to quash it. They may have their differences, but there was one thing they could both agree on: losing your beloved to another person really sucked.


	7. Shook Me All Night Long

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A tiny chapter in which we are given a glimpse into Nandor and Nadja’s love life

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They are so stupid, omg
> 
> Sorry if there are any mistakes, I did not bother having this chapter beta-d because it's small and pure crack :')

_Crack._

“ _Shit_!” Nandor growled, pulling his lips back in a pained snarl…not that Nadja could see it because she was currently pounding him from behind. “Nadja! Easy!”

Nadja was _anything_ but easy with the riding crop. In fact, for this little outburst, she gave him three lashes; delighting in every groan and whimper that escaped her husband-to-be. “Naughty boy!” she admonished.

_Whack._ Right on the rump. Nandor shrieked.

“What have I done now?” he whined. He was in a very compromising position right now: on all fours, back arched, being ridden by a ten-inch strap-on and a beautiful lady vampire of questionable sanity.

“You have done nothing but complain for the past hour!” Nadja snapped.

“We have been going for three hours! My dick can only handle so much!”

“Do you want me to stop?” Nadja asked, her voice dripping venom.

“Yes!” Nandor cried in relief.

Nadja withdrew the silicon dong without flourish. Nandor glanced behind his shoulder at her questioningly.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Stopping.”

“I did not say the safety word, though.”

“Yes but I’m tired of you whining,” Nadja huffed. “Really, Nandor? Is there any fantasy or fetish in that head of yours that doesn’t involve you crying and begging for mercy?”

Nandor shuffled around and sat back on his haunches. It looked rather comical with his impressive length sticking up eagerly from the nest of curls at his crotch.

“Well…maybe you could…let me go on top?” he said cautiously, his muscles tense as though expecting the lady vampire to pounce on him. “It has been a while since we did that.”

“Oh, darling,” Nadja giggled. She leaned into Nandor and took his cock in her hand. “You are just too much fun to tease and scathe. Laszlo is always such a grouch when it comes to pain in the bedroom.” She lightly slapped Nandor’s thigh with her free hand.

Nandor could see why her ex-husband might be that way.

Nadja was utterly _insane_ in the bedroom. He’d forgotten just how untamed she was…and he liked it. Had it not been for his vampiric healing abilities, he’d still be wearing a crisscross of welts across his back, crescent-shaped nail marks over his shoulders, and too many bitemarks to count.

The problem was, despite their spotty history of trysts, Nandor was still too terrified to give back. Even touching her gently evoked foolish fears of being screamed at, pummeled, or thrown into the basement. She was unpredictable; wild; a complete dominatrix. And Nandor wasn’t even sure how she truly felt about him. She had, at least, assured him many times that he was better than Laszlo between the sheets. And Nandor did love being dominated (though that was one thing he would _never_ give Guillermo the satisfaction of knowing. Definitely, definitely never).

Nadja kissed him with a fierceness that had his flagging cock going rock-hard again. How he could still keep it up after three days of non-stop fucking, he didn’t know. Maybe it had something to do with Nadja threatening to bite his dick off if he came too quickly. Nandor shook these thoughts out of his head and focused on his wife-to-be, who was pumping him with a tight fist and looking almost bored.

“Alright, alright,” she sighed finally, misinterpreting his silence for disappointment. “I will let you ravish me. But _no_ smacking!” She emphasized this rule with another slap on his thigh. Nandor beamed like a child on Christmas. Nadja lifted her lip in a tetchy grimace. And then they came together again, limbs intertwining, mouths glued to each other, growls emanating from deep within their throats.

Regardless of how she felt about him, or how he felt about her, the sex was good.

*****

“Nandor, darling! The telly-communications man will be here soon!” Nadja called from her boudoir. She was presently putting on lipstick as red as the blood she planned to feast on tonight. “It will be good to have a device for taking photographs, since you are so useless at helping me with my makeup!”

“I am busy!” Nandor called distractedly from somewhere in the house.

“Doing what?” she yelled back.

“Trying to button my vest, because you will not help me!”

“I refuse to help a man dress when _that_ man told me my makeup was fine last night…I looked like a bloody jester! Did you not see the picture that that _hussy_ Candace took of me?”

“I don’t think anybody noticed, little kitten,” Nandor stated proudly. “They were too busy staring at other parts of you.”

Nadja smiled in spite of herself. Yes, the dinner party had gone _quite_ well last night. Laszlo may have been handy when it came to her makeup and hair, but Nandor was far quieter at social events, preferring to stay well away from the limelight and thus allowing his betrothed to steal it.

She dropped her lipstick onto the vanity and adjusted the bodice of her flowing black dress. It was Nandor’s favorite, because it sparkled like the stars. She met him out on the landing, by the staircase. Nandor’s eyes lit up upon seeing her; great, big puppy eyes. If she were a softer woman, Nadja would absolutely melt. Instead, she leaned into him with a sweet smile and planted a kiss on his lips. Nandor returned it with vigor, opening his mouth and gently scraping her lips with his tongue and teeth. She giggled against his mouth and pulled away…then had to stifle another giggle when she saw that Nandor’s lips were painted glossy red. No doubt the tips of his teeth were sporting lipstick smears too.

The creepy doorbell rang just then, and Nadja let out an excited, “Oh!” and spun around.

“Nadja?” Nandor called after her, his voice tinged with disappointment.

“It will be the telly man!”

“Can we tell him to come back later?”

“No, darling. It is already late.”

Nandor huffed and began to follow her down the stairs. “Well did Colin Robinson at least request their most virginal of employees?”

“No,” Nadja repeated with a pout, “he said that it was difficult enough to organize a meeting for this late at night. But maybe we will be lucky, yes?”

They greeted the phone salesman at the door, and they _were_ lucky. He was a large-framed man in his early 30s, with greying thin hair pulled back from his round, greasy face – a face that had once been victim to severe acne and was now dimpled and scarred and sparsely stubbled. He wore rectangular glasses and a black polo shirt with a logo on it. Slung over his shoulder was a matching satchel.

His dark, beady eyes seemed to widen a little as they settled on the lady of the house. “Uh…Nadia…Ravensworth?”

Nadja was too excited to correct him (or sizzle over the fact that Colin Robinson had given her Laszlo’s surname).

“Yes, hello, what a pleasure to meet you!” She flashed him her widest, toothiest grin.

“Hellooo.” Nandor waved from behind her. “Please come in. Make yourself a house.”

They moved out of the man’s way and as he pushed past, his eyes took in the hallway and the foyer beyond. He seemed partly impressed and partly terrified.

“What is your name, sweetroll?” Nadja cooed from behind him. She winked at Nandor, who gave her two elated thumbs-up.

“Uh…Dylan…” the man replied slowly, hesitantly. “So, I’ve got your phone here. Your cousin…second cousin? Colin? Paid for it all. Said you might need some help getting it set up, though.”

“Yes that is correct,” Nadja said distractedly. Beneath the smell of human sweat, cheap cologne and pen ink was the delicious, saccharine aroma of virginal blood. “Please come into the fancy room just over here.”

“Yes, the fancy room,” Nandor echoed with a fanged grin.

Nadja thought they were doing a very good job of making the human feel at ease.

*****

Satiated and horny, with a fancy new phone in their clutches, Nadja and Nandor nuzzled each other half-naked on the sofa. Nadja was pressing various icons on the screen, using their fancy silvery pen that the now-dead human man had said was very stylish.

“Are you ready?” Nandor asked impatiently, clutching at the little piece of paper that had Colin’s number scrawled on it.

“No, I forget which button it is to make the summoning!” Nadja hissed.

“It is the banana-shaped button!”

She pressed the square button instead and Nandor groaned. The camera flicked up, pasting their faces onto the little screen. Nadja let out an excited little peep. Nandor squinted at the display, grimacing. He touched a finger to his lip.

“Nadja,” he growled, “is that…?”

“It is just blood, darling.”

“That is make-ups!” Nandor cried in outrage. “Why did you not tell me I was wearing the lippy sticks? _Nadja_!”


	8. Flirtin' With Disaster

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Colin is still wearing the fucking hat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for all the comments last chapter! Sorry I've been terrible keeping up with replying lately, but I appreciate them so much!! And as usual, huuuuge thank you to UV_Duv for beta-ing!! <3

Laszlo lifted a pair of blue jeans from his haversack. He unfolded them slowly, with care, as if unwrapping a fragile gift from a long-time friend. A small, loving smile played over his lips and his eyes shone with nostalgia.

Needless to say, Guillermo was thoroughly confused. “Since when do you wear jeans?” he muttered.

“Shut it, boy!” Laszlo snapped, briefly tearing his eyes away to glare at the human. “You’re ruining the moment.”

Guillermo raised an eyebrow and looked around them, as if to say, “ _what moment?_ ” The room was dim; Colin Robinson was out at his Cats feast and neither Laszlo nor Guillermo had bothered turning on any lights other than the lamp on the nightstand. Guillermo lay on his side on the plush bed, propped up on an elbow, head resting in his palm as he watched Laszlo boredly. The vampire was taking his sweet time draping the pair of jeans over the unoccupied side of the mattress. Once smoothed out (never mind that they were already smooth enough before he ran his hands over them), he rifled through his bag once more and this time retrieved the little black case that Guillermo had glimpsed the night before last.

Despite Guillermo’s impatience – he was horny and just wanted Laszlo _out_ of the room – his curiosity was somewhat piqued by the small rectangle, and he lifted himself up for a better look. Laszlo slowly opened the case, and from it he retrieved…

“Is that a—”

“Toothpick, yes.”

“—fucking _toothpick_?”

Laszlo lifted the sliver of wood to the lamplight and looked it over, as if assessing for any damage. Guillermo wouldn’t admit it to himself, let alone Laszlo, but he often did the very same thing with his stakes. The vampire replaced the toothpick and smirked at Guillermo, whom responded with an undisguised eyeroll.

“Ready to be bamboozled, my boy?” Laszlo trumpeted, putting on his showman’s voice.

“No,” Guillermo replied dourly. He absently picked at the frayed stitching of Laszlo’s haversack. Laszlo spun around and began to fiddle with something, and at first Guillermo thought it was the toothpick, but then he remembered the toothpick was back in its case, and _then_ Laszlo dropped his pants.

“Ugh! Really?” Guillermo shouted, promptly shielding his eyes. “You know there’s a private bathroom three feet away?”

“I don’t recall you complaining last time I took my clothes off,” Laszlo quipped.

Guillermo felt his face heat up. Laszlo was right; and he’d been even _less_ dressed that night. Still, Guillermo fought his brain for a retort. Laszlo was already slipping the blue jeans past his thighs though, the shifting of fabric and the comedic _ziiipppp_ of his fly breaking up the tense silence. He reached behind him for the toothpick case. Guillermo sighed and shoved it into his hand. Laszlo fiddled around for a moment longer, adjusting his clothes, and then spun around, arms stretched out either side of him.

“Well?” he said through the toothpick jutting from between his lips, one eyebrow raised expectantly.

It took every inch of Guillermo’s willpower to keep from laughing. He made a show of bolting upright and shuffling back, eyes going wide. “Who the hell are you?” he demanded loudly.

The vampire’s smirk only grew. “Just a regular human bartender. The name is Daytona. Jackie Daytona.” He gave a small nod of greeting.

“The fuck are you doing in my hotel room?” Guillermo shouted, scrambling to his feet and assuming a defensive position.

Jackie’s smile faltered for a moment. “Well…”

“ _Get out_!” Guillermo shrieked. He picked up the empty black case and flung it at Jackie’s head. “Get out before I call the cops!”

Jackie ducked out of the way, putting an arm up to shield himself. “The _fuck_ , boy!?”

Guillermo grabbed a pillow up and leapt onto the bed, swooping it down on the intruder, bashing him in the head repeatedly.

“Gizmo!” Jackie cried between the soft blows. “Gah! _Stop it_! I’m—” He managed to grab the pillow and tear it away, which almost sent Guillermo toppling off the bed. He regained his balance momentarily, but one look at the disheveled vampire in front of him and Guillermo was collapsing into a heap on the mattress, unable to keep the laughter at bay any longer.

Somewhere in the timeline of being beaten with a plush cushion, Jackie had dropped the toothpick and become Laszlo again. He was thoroughly confused; gaping at Guillermo as if the boy had finally lost his marbles. Then it dawned on him…it was _he_ who had been bamboozled!

“You…little… _shit_ ,” he snarled, throwing the pillow onto the floor. Guillermo’s eyes widened a little at the look of outrage on Laszlo’s face, and then the vampire lunged, and the human shrieked, and before either of them knew what was going on, Laszlo was reaching over the bed and clawing at Guillermo’s waistband, trying to get a hold on him so he could drag him back and pummel the piece of shit within an inch of his life; and Guillermo was trying to crawl off the other side of the bed, part giggling and part screaming, knowing full well that Laszlo was getting an eyeful of ass crack while he desperately tried to free himself from the vampire’s clutches.

The door opened. Colin walked inside. Both men stopped immediately and looked up: Laszlo, who was stretched stomach-down on the bed, arms out in front of him like superman, a hiss dying on his lips, clutching at the waistband of Guillermo’s sweatpants which were presently partway down the boy’s ass; and Guillermo, whose top half hung off the other side of the bed, all the blood rushing to his face as he laughed in great breathless sobs and grabbed at the floor for purchase.

“The fuck…are you…” Laszlo trailed off, struggling to get to his feet. Guillermo slid off the bed and shuddered with the afterglow of laughter. He looked up at Colin, and…an unfamiliar lady that stood partly-hidden beside him. Tendrils of curly red hair spilled over her shoulders, most of it haphazardly bunched up into a half-bun. Her eyes were wide and a little confused as she took in the scene.

“So, remember that woman I was talking about?” Colin said, as if the woman wasn’t standing directly beside him. “She was at Cats, heh, small world isn’t it?” He gave a happy little shrug, hands in his pockets. He was still wearing the fucking hat.

Laszlo quickly adjusted his vest and the white blouse beneath it and shook out his sleeves, though it did little to help his tousled visage. All the while, he kept wide dark eyes on their visitor.

“This is the woman…?” he asked finally, “The one with the handbag?”

“Yes,” Colin said, still wearing his crooked little grin. “Amy? This is Laszlo. Laszlo? Amy. And that one on the floor over there, struggling to pull his pants up, is Guillermo, though we call him Gizmo.” He leaned in toward Amy’s shoulder, cocking his head to the side as if to share a secret, though his voice was still very much audible to the entire room. “Told you they’d be bonking by next week.” His eyes flashed blue momentarily as a ferocious blush took hold of Guillermo’s face.

“This…is the woman…” Laszlo repeated dumbly. It sounded more like a statement than a question now. Colin’s grin wavered, but before he could come up with a response, Laszlo rushed forward and took the lady’s hand in his own and lifted the dainty thing to his lips and gave it two rather amorous pecks. One of his eyebrows almost touched the ceiling. Guillermo beat Colin in the rolling-of-the-eyes race.

Amy looked extremely uncomfortable. She let out a tiny, “Uh…”

Laszlo stood back and addressed Colin with a verbal blow. “Why the fuck did you leave her out there on such a bleak, miserable night? This spicy little vixen throws herself at you and you leave her in the parking lot like a dead racoon?”

Now it was Colin’s turn to say, “Uh…”

Guillermo was actually kind of impressed, if not grossed out by his advances. Laszlo was making _Colin_ – Colin, the energy vampire who fed off discomfort like it was a heavenly potato salad– feel genuinely uncomfortable.

“Darling, I wouldn’t waste your time on a _rapscallion_ like Colin Robinson,” Laszlo said, very suavely. “It just so happens that I am recently separated and am on the prowl, so to speak.”

Amy visibly shuddered, and judging by the grimace that graced her petite features, it wasn’t a shudder of arousal. She clutched nervously at her purse, which she held in front of her like a tiny, ineffective shield. The dress she wore tonight was knee-length with a pleated skirt and a simple bodice held up by two thick straps. The pastel turquoise of the cotton brought out the green in her eyes. Guillermo had to admit she was beautiful, and the way her eyes occasionally flittered towards Colin in a “please help me” sort of way made him think that that hat was _definitely_ working in the energy vampire’s favor.

Was she genuinely interested in the guy, or was it the hat forcing her hand? Guillermo only now realized how fucked up that was. But his attention was suddenly snatched up by Colin, who was bristling.

“Nobody will be eating Amy,” he said with a hint of snappiness, as though scolding a child.

Laszlo stepped back, agape with outrage. “Have you already fucking told her I’m a vampire?”

Amy went a little pale at that, her eyebrows scrunching with worry. Guillermo had to hand it to her (…or maybe the hat…) she hadn’t run away yet.

“No, but _you_ just did.” Colin turned to Guillermo. “Hey, guess what? Nandor and Nadja got an iPhone. I told them I’d give them a call tonight and let you guys speak. That’s why I came back early. No loss for me, really. The awkwardness of your call will be far more stimulating to the senses than the parents at the show. A few of them were snoring when I left. One was laying in the aisle; had to step right over him. Heh.”

Guillermo’s stomach dropped, but he didn’t have the spoons to react in any way other than to mutter, “Can’t wait.”

*****

Had it been any other situation, Guillermo would have been amused by Laszlo’s uncharacteristic behaviour right now. The vampire was the very definition of antsy: sitting down on the bed, standing back up, twiddling his thumbs, tugging on his vest, adjusting his hair (which was still disheveled from their tussle), biting his bottom lip, scratching his beard. Instead, with Guillermo’s own nerves sparking like faulty wiring, his actions were downright irritating. Guillermo was doing his own pacing, wringing his hands while trying to calm his heart.

Poor Amy gingerly sat on the Leather Chair of Questionable Cleanliness and watched on with all the comfort of a lady stuck in an awkward situation, in a tiny room, with three strange men.

Colin Robinson dialed the number, sending Guillermo’s heart rate skyrocketing and Laszlo’s guts into utter mayhem. Much to Guillermo’s dismay, Nadja had figured out how to answer the phone. The ‘ah!’ that rang out made it clear she was on video and could see Colin. There wasn’t much of a greeting from her, though.

“Are the boys there with you?” she asked in a blasé way.

“And how is Guillermo,” Nandor muttered in the least-desperate voice possible.

“Yeah, they’re here,” Colin replied, eyes sparkling with anticipation. “Guillermo is fine, Nandor. In fact, he and Laszlo have been having some fun. I walked in on—”

“Give me _that_!” Guillermo hissed, snatching the phone from Colin, unable to stand it any longer. He looked down at the screen, where the little faces of Nandor and Nadja floated, and his heart skipped painfully. They were lounging on the bed, Nandor with an arm behind his head, holding the phone at an angle that highlighted the regal lines of his cheekbones, his proud nose, the sharp edge of his jaw only barely visible beneath the luscious hair of his beard. Although the vampires’ chests were, for the most part, covered by a velvety blanket, it was clear they were both naked underneath. And from the way Nadja’s hair stuck out at all angles, and Nandor’s hair was a fan around his face, it was clear they’d just finished some rather vigorous bed exercise.

“Guillermo!” Nandor said with a grin, all pretense of detachedness gone. “It is good to see you. Did you get your hairs cut?”

Guillermo tried to keep his voice and face deadpan as he replied. “Nope. No haircut.” Then he really _looked_ at the blanket for the first time, and what little surroundings he could see in the video call, and he squinted, grimacing. “Are you in _my_ _bed_?”

“We can’t very well make love in the coffins,” Nadja giggled.

“Well where did you and Laszlo—?” Guillermo cut himself off, feeling a blush rise to his cheeks. Which was stupid, considering the love of his life was presently sprawled out naked, though mostly covered, before him. If only the screen were a little bigger.

“Oh, Nandor does not like to go into the _boudoir_ ,” Nadja said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “It reminds him too much of Laszlo. What with the stains in the chaise cushions. And on the floor. And the ceiling.”

“So it should!” Laszlo piped up loudly, rushing to the phone and grabbing it from Guillermo’s clutches. His face was just as red as Guillermo imagined his own must be; which was quite a feat for a vampire who presumably hadn’t eaten in a while. He looked like he was about to unleash a terrible fury on them. But when he saw them for the first time, something softened on his face, if only slightly. His mouth twitched down. His eyes got a little sadder. Or maybe it was just a trick of the light.

“Nandor,” he greeted flatly.

Guillermo heard Nandor’s clueless, happy, “Hellooo!” ring out from the screen and internally face-palmed.

Laszlo seemed to collapse inwardly at that; assuming his previous agitated state. “So, how is the wedding planning going?” he asked. It was clear he was trying to put on an air of indifference, but his voice quivered. Guillermo was surprised…for something that apparently happened every few decades, it still seemed to affect Laszlo terribly.

“Wonderfully!” Nadja gushed. “We have the invitation lists written out, and two new familiars—”

“—We do?” Nandor cut in, scrunching his face up in confusion.

“ _Yes_ , darling,” Nadja said through clenched teeth, elbowing him sharply in the ribs. He flinched and whispered ‘ _ow_ ’, still confused but at least smart enough to keep his mouth shut.

“That’s terrific, dear. _We_ have, err…” Laszlo looked extremely flustered. This time it almost _was_ amusing to Guillermo. The vampire’s eyes darted about the room, looking for something… _anything_ …exciting to announce.

His eyes fell on Amy.

“Laszlo,” Guillermo muttered in warning. He knew the vampire was about to say something cringy, and he wasn’t sure he could deal with anymore of the secondhand embarrassment. Then again, the asshole _did_ try to kill him.

Laszlo opened his mouth to speak. Guillermo lunged at him, snatching the phone back and scolding him with a pointed glower. Then he gave Nandor and Nadja his friendliest most definitely-not-fictitious smile and said, “Well, it’s been great talking but we need to go. Laszlo stinks and needs a bath—

“How very _dare—!_ ” (That was Laszlo)

“—and Colin has a date.”

“Oh?” Nadja peeped, interested.

“Yeah so we’ll be going now okay talk soon bye.” He pressed the disconnect button, watched the face of the man he loved disappear, and let his breath out through his teeth. Laszlo’s attempts to subtly sniff himself didn’t go unnoticed. He straightened, opened his mouth as if to speak, then shut it, then cleared his throat. His face twisted into a sullen look and Guillermo was shocked to see the edges of his eyes rimmed with moisture.

“If you’ll excuse me,” he mumbled to nobody in particular, “I have to feed the racoons…BAT!” With a puff of dust, Laszlo morphed into bat form.

Amy shrieked and almost fell out of her chair. Colin reached for her and steadied her with a grimace. Bat-Laszlo hit the door with a loud thud, fell to the floor, turned back into human form and groaned loudly in pain; legs sticking in the air.

“Forgot bats can’t open bloody doors,” he muttered, before sniffling petulantly. He departed the room in human form.

*****

Guillermo never intended to find Laszlo. He’d left the room because he needed the fresh air, and he figured the vampire was probably off drinking people and sulking (kind of like how Guillermo would eat chocolate and cry when his unrequited love for Nandor became too much to bear). So he was surprised when he found him sitting on a small knoll by a busy intersection not far from the hotel. He hung back for a while, leaning against the crosswalk button on the other side of the road and pretending to watch the traffic, as if he hadn’t yet spotted the vampire (it was, truthfully, hard to see anything this late at night, even under the guidance of streetlights).

Eventually though, during a lull in the traffic, he heard Laszlo’s voice drift over to him. “You have to press the button, you fucking dizzard!”

Guillermo considered yelling something smart-ass back, but he hadn’t missed the distress in Laszlo’s voice, and for some reason he didn’t want to upset the vampire even more. He put it down to the fact that Laszlo had nearly slaughtered him over something as trivial as being woken up early, and not that he felt sorry for him. Pressing the button, he waited for the green man and then crossed the road.

He sat down beside Laszlo, keeping a space of at least two Nandor-sized people between him and the sullen vampire. Together they watched the traffic pass, silent except for the steady beating of Guillermo’s heart between them. Guillermo vaguely wondered what all the people in those cars were up to. Typical human things, no doubt. Things that people do when they aren’t intrinsically tied to a bunch of ancient vampires and trying to become one of them: socializing, dining out, driving home after a hard day’s work of not tracking down virgins or scrubbing the dog shit from a sixteenth-century Persian cape. Hanging out with family, going to the movies, a first date…not forever tortured by a seven-hundred-year-old incredibly handsome corpse with pointy teeth.

Guillermo hazarded a glance at Laszlo. The vampire tried and failed to look stoic, staring out at the road unblinkingly. The lights of the passing traffic danced blue and gold over his brooding face, and his profile was outlined in a thin, sharp line of light from a nearby streetlamp. Guillermo decided to break the silence, if only because it was starting to become very awkward for him.

He settled his gaze back on the road and said, “Twelve years. Twelve years I’ve been in love with Nandor. Bending over backwards for him—”

Laszlo tore his eyes away from the highway and squinted at him. “ _Really_? Nandor always insisted he was not interested in fucking you.”

Guillermo blanched. “Oh my g—no…’bending over backwards’ is just an expression. It means, well… I’ve done so much for him over the years, cleaning his bloody clothes and brushing his hair and doing his errands and cleaning the house and supporting his stupid whims and fantasies. Remember that time he made me write a letter to Agnetha Fältskog demanding he become the fifth member of ABBA?”

“He thought he could get away with it because of the hair.”

“I didn’t have the heart to tell him they split up decades ago.” Guillermo let out an amused snort and swiped at tears he hadn’t noticed before. “Twelve years of loving that man, twelve years of servitude, twelve years of Groundhog Day dealing with a fucking thirteenth-century toddler.” He swallowed the bitterness with a generous serving of tears. It went down like a lump of hot acid. “And then one day…he just up and decides to fall in love with someone else and now…this is the first time I’ve stayed away from the house for _years_. The last time I drove anywhere farther than New York was when I was nineteen. Funny how I felt a lot freer back then…” he realized he was rambling and decided to get to the point, a tiny flush breaking out over his cheeks despite the crisp breeze. “But all of that…that’s nothing compared to losing your wife of –how many years? Two hundred? –to your best friend. That’s a huge punch in the guts, Laszlo. And I wanted to say that—”

“Gizmo,” Laszlo snapped. His lips were quivering dangerously. Guillermo caught the glint of a tear trapped in his bottom eyelashes.

“—I just wanted to say that it’s okay to—”

“—Shut up, _boy._ ” The last word came out choked and wobbly.

“It’s okay to cry.”

“I am _not_ —” Laszlo’s words cut off in a sob and he turned his head away from Guillermo, but Guillermo didn’t miss the way his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. Laszlo Cravensworth crying… _actually spilling real tears…_ should have delighted Guillermo to no end. He should have tilted his head back and laughed until he himself was crying; should have pointed at the vampire and mocked him and said ‘how does it feel?’. Instead, he simply gave a big shaky sniffle and continued, his voice still gentle and calm despite the turmoil in his guts.

“We’re dealing with a _lot_ right now and—”

“You can go now,” Laszlo interrupted, still facing away from the human.

“Will you stop interrupting me? I wanted to say that if there’s anything—”

“—Please get the fuck off my hill, boy.”

“—You need, well, just know that I’m—”

“Thank you, Gizmo.” He did not sound thankful. There was a warning in his tone.

“I’m here and I know a little, I mean a _tiny_ bit, of what you’re going through. And if you need me—”

“I swear on my mother’s vulva topiary that if you don’t leave my hill right now, I am going to castrate you.”

“ _Okay_ , I’m going,” Guillermo relented, and got to his feet. “Just, maybe, think about what I said, yeah?” He didn’t wait around for a reply, instead opting to leave the little knoll, and the vampire, and take the short walk back to the hotel.

It should have been an uneventful journey, his destination being only a few lots away. Guillermo could see the ‘HOTEL’ sign, partly hidden behind a tree, from the intersection. But the highway cut a line through scrubland, and behind the sparse scattering of houses and businesses was an expanse of wood that could easily hide a hundred lurking nightwalkers.

Luckily for Guillermo, there were only two.

Unluckily for Guillermo, he hadn’t thought to bring a stake with him; the one he kept on his belt had fallen off during his escape from Laszlo.

He’d just passed the restaurant on the opposite side of the road; had just stepped outside of Laszlo’s field of vision, when they pounced. For a second, Guillermo thought he’d been hit by a car. The world spun sickeningly around him and then he was hitting the sidewalk and all the air was wrenched from his lungs by invisible fists. Lights danced before his eyes and he let out a strained groan, momentarily dazed. It all happened within a fraction of a second, and then the sounds of snarling and the feeling of claws against his neck kickstarted his brain and his body into action.

With a great heave of his legs, Guillermo managed to push one of the clawing assassins off of him and roll partly away. He was on his stomach, ready to spring to his feet, when the other attacker slammed into his back, crushing him against the ground and winding him again. Guillermo sucked in rasping breaths and tried to kick his assailants off. He managed to reach down and feel around for his stake, knowing that that single sliver of wood was the one thing keeping him away from the pit of death. And then he remembered. His heart dropped. It wasn’t there. He let out a loud groan. His confidence washed away, taking the color in his face with it.

A low growl in his ear.

A blow to the head.

Searing pain in his shoulder.

The flutter of robes falling around him.

A splatter of red on the ground below.

His vision blurring over. Dimming. Sound fading.

Guillermo was certain he was going to pass out, yet an instant later he was wrenched from the lightless chasm by a bellowed curse and a chorus of hisses and snarls. The weight was suddenly gone from his back and his arms and legs were free. He scrambled into a sitting position and slapped a hand against the wound in his shoulder, eyes clearing and bringing in the image of Laszlo holding two large twigs out in front of him. The jagged bits of wood crossed over each other, making a crude crucifix. Smoke rose from the vampire’s palms and the smell of burning flesh reached Guillermo’s nose and almost made him gag. It smelled acrid and dusty, like someone torched old papers. Laszlo was yelling something, but his brain was too sluggish to keep up. All he could do was watch as his saviour chased the staggering, hissing assassins onto the highway with his leafy, makeshift crucifix.

They were no match for the incessant traffic. Horns blared, tires screeched, cars and trucks veered off the road, too late. A hefty pickup truck hit the first vampire and it exploded in a dramatic firecracker of blood and flesh. Guillermo was too awed to flinch. The second vampire was gone a split-second later – crushed by an eighteen-wheeler that was definitely not adhering to the speed limit, instantly rendered into a shapeless splatter of crimson against the silvery sheen of the truck’s grill.

Laszlo rushed back to the sidewalk. Once safely off the road, he remembered the sticks in his searing palms and dropped them with a disgusted growl. He flexed his hands until the burns faded, along with his pained grimace. Then he spotted Guillermo and startled a little, as if he’d forgotten he was there. He cocked an eyebrow and curled his lips into a smirk that was far haughtier than the current situation called for.

“I should think, boy, that it is _you_ who needs _me_ ,” he said, and needlessly dusted himself off.


	9. A Hard Day's Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Laszlo is strangely concerned for Guillermo's wellbeing. Colin is feeling unfamiliar feelings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, big thank you to UV_duv for beta reading and Americanizing all my Australianisms so the story makes more sense :'D You are a godsend. And again, big thank you to my readers!! Every comment and kudos gives me the warm and fuzzies, seriously y'all make my day.

“Does it look bad?” Guillermo asked, wincing as he wiped the rest of the blood from his shoulder. He’d already showered and was now standing shirtless in front of the bathroom mirror, too adrenaline-filled to really care that he was being observed by a supercilious bastard.

“I’ve seen worse bites from a parakeet,” Laszlo scoffed from the doorway. Guillermo wasn’t sure if he was being obnoxious for the sake of it, or just trying to make him feel better. Either way, the vampire had been hovering around the bathroom ever since they returned, and he didn’t seem his usual blasé self. There was something almost resembling concern in his dark eyes.

Guillermo focused on cleaning the two deep, inflamed puncture marks. They looked as though they were already beginning to fester. The sting of broken flesh beneath the rough washcloth made him screw his nose up. Had it been any other wound, Guillermo probably could have benefited from a couple of sutures. But he didn’t feel like trying to explain to an ER doctor what kind of animal had bitten him, nor did he really want to put up with another round of rabies shots. He sighed forlornly at the memory of that ordeal, being bitten by the bat that Nandor had erroneously set free.

“Your head’s bleeding,” Laszlo said after a while.

“I know. But I’m a little more concerned about the fact I was bitten by a  _ really _ ugly vampire. Like…it was just a nip, right? I won’t turn into the vampiric equivalent of a ballsack will I?”

“Come here.”

Laszlo’s firm order took Guillermo by surprise. He glanced around at him inquisitively, but the vampire’s face was impassive. So he dropped the washcloth and joined him in the doorway. Silently, Laszlo slid Guillermo’s glasses up his face until they rested against his curls. Then he cupped his cheeks and pulled him forward. Guillermo’s heart stopped, then kickstarted in dizzying leaps. Somewhere in the back of his mind he wondered if he should pucker up…

…But the way Laszlo stared into his eyes made it clear that he had no amorous intentions, and for some reason Guillermo’s heart shriveled at that.

_ God I’m pathetically desperate _ , he lamented inwardly.

Laszlo hummed thoughtfully as he examined the man’s pupils with the thoroughness of a doctor. Finally he removed his hands, stepped back, and said, “It just occurred to me, I have no fucking idea how to check for onset brain scramblies.”

“Huh?” Guillermo uttered in a daze.

“How many fingers am I holding up?” Laszlo continued, lifting a hand in front of his face, far too close. All of his fingers were splayed out.

Guillermo had to refrain from rolling his eyes. “Five,” he said.

“Wrong!” Laszlo shouted, startling the human. “ _ Four _ fingers. One is a thumb.”

Guillermo muttered a prayer for patience in Spanish.

“Ah! Speaking in tongues!” Laszlo declared, taking an alarmed step back. “Classic sign of the scramblies! This type is very common when a human takes a blow to the napper.”

“I’m not concussed, if that’s what you mean,” Guillermo said tiredly, waving a dismissive hand at him. “But my head is killing me, and you’re not making it any better.” He trudged back to the sink, feeling the vampire’s eyes on the back of his head. He tried in vain to tamp down the fluttering in his stomach as he went back to cleaning his wound. That had been an unusually considerate (if not misguided) gesture from Laszlo.

The silence stretched out over their heads until it became too much for Guillermo.

“Laszlo, can you get the little blue case in my bag? It’s got a yellow cross on it.”

“Bugger off, boy! You want me to touch a cross?”

“It’s a first aid cross. Not a crucifix.”

There was a pause. Then suddenly Laszlo was yelling from somewhere outside the bathroom. “And who gave you permission to order me around, Gizmo? I think you’ll find that  _ I _ am the superior here. In fact, you should be kneeling at my feet begging to become  _ my _ familiar after…”

Guillermo shut Laszlo’s voice out and examined the now-clean wound. It had stopped bleeding, at least, but it looked like it was already headed for infection. Or maybe it would skip infection and just go straight to septic. Guillermo grimaced at the thought. Luckily, he kept a well-stocked kit, complete with things that your typical first-aid kit usually lacked.

“You owe me something for this,” Laszlo announced as he came back and all but pegged the bag at Guillermo’s head. Guillermo caught it, hissing in pain as he strained his shoulder. He felt more blood seep out of the wound and onto his skin.

“And what do I owe you?” he said through gritted teeth. The question had come unbidden. He could have ignored Laszlo’s statement, but the tone of the vampire’s voice told him that Laszlo had something specific in mind. That specific thing surprised Guillermo.

“Your safety,” Laszlo said, watching Guillermo unzip the little bag and retrieve gauze and a sticky square bandage. Guillermo glanced at him, trying to keep his expression flat.

“And how am I supposed to do that?” he asked curtly.

Laszlo’s lips curled into an all-knowing smirk. He really was a shithead, Guillermo decided. A shithead that he was slowly but surely starting to… _ No,  _ Guillermo thought bitterly.  _ No feelings. I’m just lovesick and…and desperate _ .

“As you saw for yourself, I am a master of disguise.”

“You sure are,” Guillermo muttered, turning back to his task. He smothered the gauze with a generous glob of antiseptic cream and went to work on his shoulder.

“And I think that we may be able to keep you safe from the vampiric council by giving you a disguise of your own.”

Guillermo stopped wiping at his neck and considered the idea. He would  _ never _ admit to Laszlo that it was a decent enough idea, so he gave a simple shrug and said, “Should I get the glasses and moustache then? Big nose?”

“You already have two of those,” Laszlo said dismissively. “In fact, I think you could do away with the glasses.”

“That’s a great idea,” Guillermo said. “It’s not like I need them in order to  _ see _ .” Carefully he placed the bandage over the wound, then went to work cleaning the back of his head. He was too tired to shower tonight; this was the best he could muster.

“Good, that’s settled then,” Laszlo said, clapping his hands together. “Not many people know this, but Daytona combs his hair slightly differently than Laszlo.”

“Really? Wow.”

“Never underestimate the power of a slightly different combing, my boy. You could do without the wool sweaters, too. They’re as ugly as a hat full of arseholes and quite frankly it will be embarrassing enough being seen in public with you.”

Guillermo chose to ignore that. He retrieved a pill bottle from his first aid kit and checked the label. Amoxycillin. He clutched it and made his way out of the bathroom, shoving past Laszlo. The hotel room had been empty when they’d returned, but Colin had left a note on the nightstand explaining that he had to take Amy home after the girl suffered a panic attack.  _ Thanks, Laszlo _ . Guillermo wondered how long he’d been gone for; they’d come back to the hotel at least half an hour ago and there was still no sign of him. He couldn’t help the worry that came crawling in…but no, he wouldn’t call him. He didn’t want to give the energy vampire the satisfaction of knowing he was concerned. Even if he had every right to be, having just been attacked by assassins and all.

Guillermo took the antibiotics, then made his way to bed with his water. Each step was like a hammer pounding into the back of his skull. He winced and put a hand to the small cut hidden in his hair. It was already scabbing up, but he was sporting an impressive egg. Laszlo was still watching him. It was starting to become a little unnerving.

“Do you carry willow bark in your medicinal knapsack?” the vampire asked. “Leeches?”

Guillermo flopped onto the bed, winced at the force of the soft pillow against his head, and then glared silently at him.

“No? You don’t carry feverfew? Valerian?” Laszlo tried again.

“I’m going to assume those are eighteenth-century pain relievers?” Guillermo let out a little groan as he crawled beneath the covers. “I have modern-day painkillers in the first aid kit. Little orange bottle, says “codeine” on the label.”

“Ah,” Laszlo said. He put his hands in his pockets as he awkwardly regarded the injured human.

Guillermo blinked at him expectantly. “Well?”

Laszlo blinked back. “Well  _ what _ ? All of a sudden you expect me to be at your every beck and call? Piss on that!” He spun around and stormed into the bathroom. Guillermo had to stifle crazed laughter as he listened to Laszlo rifle around in the first aid kit.

He must have drifted off for a second or two, because when he opened his eyes again, Laszlo was standing before him, holding the pill bottle and staring at him with wide, soft eyes.

“Here,” he said gently, handing Guillermo the bottle. Guillermo took it, too confused to give his thanks. Laszlo looked utterly cowed. Had Guillermo muttered something during his two-second nap? Had the night finally caught up with the vampire? Guillermo decided it wasn’t important enough to worry over tonight. Downing two pills, he settled back under the covers, eager for the warm fuzziness of the codeine to take over his pain and send him off into a comfortable deep sleep. Laszlo was still standing there, shuffling from foot to foot awkwardly.

“You should go hunt,” Guillermo mumbled in an attempt to dismiss the concerned-looking vampire. The drugs were taking hold fast, and already he found himself dipping in and out of consciousness.

“When Colin returns,” Laszlo said. His voice sounded far away.

“What if he’s gone all night?” Guillermo asked.

“Then I won’t get to bloody eat, will I?”

That was the last thing Guillermo heard…but somewhere in the fuzzy depths of his subconsciousness, in the moments before plunging into a deep dreamless sleep, he felt the mattress give way beside him as it accommodated a second body.

*****

Guillermo was awoken at 5am by the shopping channel. As he stirred from his slumber, he found himself weirdly relieved at the energy vampire’s return. Colin Robinson sat on the leather chair next to the bed, swiveling back and forth as he flicked through the TV guide. For once, he wasn’t wearing the hat.

“Sleep well?” he greeted, not taking his eyes away from the glaring screen on the wall.

“Mmm,” was all Guillermo could manage.

“No kicks to the head?”

Guillermo winced at the word _head_ ; the pain rushing back to him with terrible force. He sat up and focused on Colin’s question, realizing that his sleep _had_ been surprisingly unbroken…no blows to the temple, or toes wiggling their way into his mouth. The mattress shifted beside him ever-so-slightly and he looked down at Laszlo’s sleeping form. The vampire was on his back as usual, arms crossed over his chest. His face was slack, his expression placid, which was a far cry from its usual frowning and twitching. But most noticeably, Laszlo had slept at the head of the bed with Guillermo, as opposed to shoving pillows down the other end and sleeping with his feet dangerously close to Guillermo’s face.

If Colin heard the embarrassing rate that Guillermo’s heart had suddenly sped up to, he at least had the grace not to acknowledge it. In fact, he looked a little pensive as he watched two burly men on the TV try to persuade viewers to buy a Louis Vuitton pochette (said men would probably have a better chance vending lawnmowers).

Guillermo figured he should get up and take a shower and plan the day but Laszlo’s upper arm was resting against his hip and he certainly did not want to risk waking the vampire (this is what he told himself, at least).

“When did you get home?” he asked Colin, reaching blindly for his glasses on the nightstand. He didn’t want to lean too far over because Laszlo’s arm…well…again he did not want to wake the vampire.

“’Bout an hour ago,” Colin said.

Guillermo couldn’t help the little grin that spread onto his face. “Oh? Spent the night at Amy’s, then?”

“Laszlo scared her half to death and she didn’t want to be left alone,” Colin explained in a mumble, and gave a one-sided shrug. “We had a great discussion, though.”

“About what?” Guillermo asked. He was genuinely curious. Colin (and the hat) had managed to snag a cute, polite red-head and Guillermo was itching to see how it would play out. It helped take his mind off his current Nandor predicament. And Laszlo.

“I told her about the various constructions and types of aqueducts throughout the centuries, with particular reference to ancient Rome.”

“…Oh.”

“Yeah, she seemed pretty interested for the first ten minutes and then fell asleep. Her roommates came home around one, so I continued my conversation with them. Wasn’t all that nutritious. They were already tired and a little too preppy for my taste. Not an awful lot of awkwardness or discomfort.”

Sleep was tugging at Guillermo again, and he actually considered laying back down. But he shook off Colin’s attempt at draining him and reached for his phone. He should probably send his mom a message finally, and if he did it while she was asleep, he could come up with an excuse for missing her incoming calls later. He sent off a quick text:  _ Amá, just letting you know I’m fine. Sorry about the other night, just got a lot going on. Speak soon. Love you –  _ and then climbed out of bed and grabbed his bag. He hauled it onto the mattress and began searching for a clean outfit.

“Hey Gizmo?” Colin said.

“Hmm?”

“You know, the whole Nandor and Nadja thing had me thinking…” he trailed off hesitantly, before shrugging. “Ehh…it’s not important.”

“I can’t tell if you’re being genuine or just trying to annoy me,” Guillermo mumbled.

“Okay, well…” Colin let his breath out through his teeth. His eyes were still fixed on the screen. Guillermo briefly wondered why his travel buddies were acting so weird all of a sudden, but then the energy vampire spoke again. “I realized that, well, I think I’m lonely.”

Of all the things Guillermo expected Colin to say, he did not expect  _ that _ . Not because he didn’t believe energy vampires could get lonely – anyone could get lonely – but because Colin trusted him enough to divulge in him that personal piece of information. And he seemed genuine. This wasn’t some trick. Guillermo’s first gut reaction was to feel a pang of sympathy for him; after all, he knew just what loneliness felt like. His second reaction was a weird mix of hope and envy…because Colin had potentially found someone. Thanks to the mystical wonders of that cursed fucking hat.

Where  _ was _ the hat?

“I do like Amy,” Colin continued, as if to fill the silence. “She’s a nice girl. Doesn’t mind being fed on, I don’t think.”

“Probably because she doesn’t know you’re feeding on her, Colin,” Guillermo said. “Or have you told her…?”

“Not specifics.” Colin waved a dismissive hand. “She was pretty stressed after Laszlo’s big departure and all. I didn’t want her worrying about  _ me _ as well. But as we were driving back to her place, she said that she felt a weird sense of calmness around me, and well, that made me think…” he trailed off, ruminating over whatever was going through his head.

“Colin, where’s the hat?” Guillermo asked, suddenly worried. If he’d left it at Amy’s house…

“Oh, it’s gone,” he said distractedly.

“Gone? Just… _ poof _ …disappeared?” Guillermo made an explosive gesture with his hands, almost elbowing Laszlo’s temple in the process. It would serve him right.

“Yep. Some trucker was sleeping in the cab of his Mack with the window partly down, so I stopped over and just stuffed it in there with him and went on my way. No longer our problem.”

“Are you serious?” Guillermo groaned. “I’ll never have a peaceful night’s sleep again knowing that  _ thing _ is out there—”

Colin grinned at him, eyes momentarily shining blue. “Relax, dude. It’s in the Flex.” His grin dropped all of a sudden and he added, hesitantly, “I’m not wearing it anymore. I’m going to ask Amy out today. And I want to make sure her answer is directed at me and not that gee-damn hat.”

Guillermo perked up at that, his eyebrows shooting almost to his hairline. “Really? Wow, Colin. That’s…big. For you.”

“Thanks?”

“Look, I need to go into town today for some new clothes and a pair of glasses. Laszlo thinks I need a disguise…” Guillermo spotted Colin’s frown and rolled his eyes. “I’m just humoring him. But why don’t you come with? Pick out something for your date?” He could scarcely believe he was asking the energy vampire to accompany him. Had it been any other timeline, he would have cringed at the very thought. But he was feeling strangely chirpy today, and wouldn’t mind some company.

“She hasn’t even said yes yet,” Colin stated monotonously. “I mean, I haven’t even asked her.”

Guillermo smirked as he pulled out a pair of old trousers (while deciding he really  _ did _ need a new wardrobe). “I dunno,” he said with a casual shrug. “I think it’s in the bag.”

“Don’t you mean  _ hat _ ?” Colin said with a teasing grin.

Guillermo felt an intense drop in energy and stifled a groan.


	10. Foolish Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Laszlo makes a proposal...of sorts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to UV_Duv for once again beta-ing, and being amazing with Colinisms! And another big thank you to readers!! Your comments give me life...I'm glad I've managed to convert some of you to the Laszlermo dark side >:D

Laszlo awoke to an empty bed and an empty room. His first thought was that something had happened to Gizmo during the day; that one of his injuries had worsened and required a visit to the city infirmary. The thought made him leap out of bed, straining a calf muscle in the process (centuries-old vampires were not immune to the consequences of their prior human aging…they just healed from them a lot faster). Wincing, he limped it off and was pain-free by the time he reached the note on the tiny breakfast counter **.**

_ Laszlo – Gizmo and I are hitting up the town.. Should be back by midday. In case anything unexpected pops up, I’m leaving one of my phones here for you to contact us. Phones were invented more than one hundred years ago, in 1876, so I’m sure you’re familiar with the concept. Just remember to use the stylus (the thing next to the phone that looks like a modern quill that was also invented centuries ago). If anything comes up, I’ll text. _

\-  _ Colin Robinson _

There was a post script that was furiously scribbled out, but despite someone’s efforts at thwarting him, Laszlo was able to make out _ : “...if he should … extra small condoms.” _

Laszlo scoffed, then glanced at the box-like clock on the nightstand. The red letters flashed 7pm. An unsettling chill ran down his spine and he shook the remaining haze from his drowsy brain, trying to piece all this new information together.

_ They said they’d be back at midday. It’s now evening. They said they would send an electronic telegraph if anything untoward happened… _

__ __ Laszlo’s arm darted out for the phone, but as he curled his hand around it, it began to vibrate and emit a terrible shrill noise.

“The fuck!” Laszlo cried, dropping the phone in alarm. The screen was flashing blue, and Laszlo realised that this, alongside the noise and the vibrations, signalled an incoming call. He grabbed his stylus and pressed down on the little modern movie projector, before thinking back to Colin answering previous calls and remembering he had to swipe it away.

If Laszlo still had a heart, it would be beating frantically in his throat by now.

The screen flashed once more and then two familiar, smiling faces filled the screen.

If Laszlo still had a heart, it would have dropped.

“Laszlo!” Nadja’s voice cooed from the little device. “How are you? How are the boys?”

“How is Guillermo?” Nandor asked over her.

Laszlo squeezed his eyes shut in frustration. “Fine! Fine. We’re all fine,” he said in a hurry. “But I really cannot talk right now—”

“We sent out invitations today,” Nadja interrupted. “We do not know where you are staying so we could not send them to you, but just know that you are invited.”

“Yes, we hope to see you there,” Nandor said with a hesitant grin.

Laszlo momentarily forgot about Gizmo and Colin. Some sort of acidic humour bubbled up into his throat and his stomach let out a loud, unhappy growl. In all their doomed wedding-planning over the years, Nadja and Nandor had never gotten as far as sending out  _ invitations _ . How long had they been away for? Less than a week, surely? He tried to think back, but Nadja kept rambling.

“So, we have the date planned for the second night of July,” she announced. “That gives us a little time to prepare—”

“Mostly we need to find where the glitter warehouses are,” Nandor slipped in.

“—And the alligators,” Nadja added. “But the rest has been a breeze so far, what with our very helpful familiars!”

“Yes, very helpful!” Nandor agreed. “Far more helpful than Guillermo! Please tell him I said that, Laszlo!”

“I will tell him no such thing,” Laszlo spat. He was fuming, yet too befuddled to figure out exactly why. “Gizmo is  _ far _ happier now without you, Nandor. In fact, this…this whole thing…” he gestured between the two, though his hand was too low for the camera to pick up, “…this is a  _ good _ thing.”

He was grasping for…for what? Some kind of leverage? Something to return the seething jealousy that was tearing him asunder? Whatever the reason, his words seemed to have an effect on the pair. Nandor’s brow knitted, and Nadja did a poor job of hiding her glower. For some reason Laszlo found himself committing to memory where they were (sitting at the big old table in the big old dining hall) and what they were wearing (all black…as though attending a funeral). He gazed at his lady wife, at her crimson lipstick and dark eyes and silky, pale skin and something gnawed painfully at his guts. His stomach growled again. He recognised the feelings as longing…and hunger.

When had he last eaten? It didn’t matter.

“Why do you say it’s a good thing?” Nandor demanded, showing his fangs. Nadja shot him a sharp glare and he quickly righted himself. “I mean to say, yes, it is a  _ very _ good thing. Very good. And it is uh…good that…Guillermo is happy.” With each hesitant pause, Nandor glanced sideways at Nadja. She looked unimpressed, but unruffled.

“Yes, so, invitations have been sent,” she repeated, diving back into wedding topics while examining her recently-manicured nails; painted the same red as her lips. “June the fifteenth is RSVP. We have not decided whether to hold the traditional vampire orgy afterwards.”

“Our love is very pure,” Nandor said wistfully. Nadja shot him a look of contempt, but covered it with a sweet smile. Laszlo was blind to their body language though. He was trapped in their words, and in memories of their first vampiric orgy together. It had been a wonderful, enamouring event. His throat constricted and began to hurt, as if someone had stuffed it with brambles. He tried to swallow, but all that resulted in was the sting of tears in his eyes.

He thought about Gizmo out there somewhere, potentially in some kind of danger, injured, or worse. Possibly just passed out from too much Colin. And suddenly, for some inexplicable reason, he felt angry again.

“Oh!” Nadja perked up, blissfully unaware of Laszlo’s current plight. “I have my dress picked out! It is beautiful. The lacing is so fine, you would  _ die _ , Laszlo. I have discovered how to take the pictures, so I may be able to send one to you.”

“Dress?” Laszlo choked. _Dress?_ _They had never--_ Usually they got as far as figuring out a night and a venue, and one would disagree with the guest list, and the other would disagree about the setting, and it would all end in tears and attempted murder.

“Yes!” Nadja clapped her hands together. “It is going to be such a beautiful night, dear. We do hope you can make it.”

“Afraid I will not be able to,  _ dear _ ,” Laszlo said, putting on an air of feigned confidence. Truth was, he was so addled with emotion and confusion over the surprise call – not to mention concern for his travel buddies and his own growling stomach – that he felt like some shrivelled, small animal. And when Laszlo became addled, the part of his brain responsible for counter-attacks turned into a gloopy, mushy machine that he had little control over. And unfortunately, that made him say things he might later regret, such as: “For I have a wedding to attend myself!”

Nadja’s smile dropped into a frown of suspicion. “Really…” she mumbled, unconvinced. 

“And whose wedding might that be?” Nandor asked, trying to mimic Nadja’s own

suspicious tone but falling way short.

“My own,” Laszlo said with a grin that probably did little to hide the tears in his eyes.

Nadja made a half-hearted raspberry with her lips. “Bullshit, Laszlo! Why do you only just announce this now?”

“Because the proposal only just happened today, love,” Laszlo replied confidently, “And I did not want to steal your limelight. But yes, I am to be wedded. We have yet to decide on a venue ourselves, but I am thinking…”

“Where is the ring, then?” Nadja spat. “Show me!”

“I was the one to propose, dear. I don’t have a ring. Not  _ yet _ .”

“Pah!” Nadja shook her head, then spotted Nandor and rolled her eyes. Her betrothed was staring at the screen with sparkling eyes, mouth partly open, completely sold on the fib.

“That is excellent, friend!” he declared loudly. “Who is the lucky lady?”

Laszlo’s brain stalled, suddenly catching up with itself and realising what he had just announced. He tried to keep the look of panic from his face as he racked his head for a response. Outside, from the highway, came the rumble of a familiar engine. The relief that flooded him in that moment made him forget his worries.

“Not a lady,” he said distractedly, and then without another thought, gave them a name.

Nadja shrieked, then cried bullshit. Nandor knocked his chair over with the force of his standing. Laszlo took the stylus and swiped the red button. The call ended.

Outside, two car doors slammed shut.

*****

Gizmo was grinning and chattering away as they walked in; his words peppered with chuckles. Colin seemed equally perky, in his own annoying, monotonous way. Their hands were filled with shopping bags of various shapes and sizes, and Laszlo heard the word ‘date’ uttered, although all other conversation eluded his dazed brain.

Colin was the first to spot Laszlo, and his crooked smile dropped a smidge at the look of pure panic on the vampire’s face. Gizmo followed Colin’s gaze, and immediately his mouth turned down and his eyebrows tilted in concern.

Laszlo felt sick to his stomach again. He fidgeted with his hands. The phone sat beside him, silent and blank but as unsettling as a loaded pistol and as guilty as the man who’d wielded it.

Gizmo dropped the bags onto the floor and said, “What is it?”

Laszlo’s hand-fidgeting only worsened. He pulled at his fingers and looked anywhere but the men in front of him. “Gizmo, I’d like to speak in private,” he muttered to a wall that was definitely not Gizmo.

“Oh…? Ok, sure.” The human exchanged wary glances with Colin, and then Colin shrugged and dropped his bags and headed out the door.

“Guess I’ll go find dinner, then,” he said on his way out.

Laszlo was actually surprised to see the energy vampire leave without argument. He heard the Flex roar (or sputter) back to life and the crunch of loose gravel as it pulled out of the parking lot. His eyes moved to Gizmo’s and there they stayed as he carefully considered his next words. The silence stretched out between them. They stood at opposite sides of the room, watching each other with the wariness of cowboys duelling at dawn.

“What?” Guillermo choked out finally.

“I got a call from Nadja and Nandor,” Laszlo said at length.

Guillermo gasped and took a step forward. “Are we going home?” he asked. His voice was filled with hope, but his eyes betrayed his panic.

“No…” Laszlo drew the word out under his breath. “We’re getting married.”

*****

“You told them  _ what _ ?” Guillermo shrieked, taking a quick step back.

“I told them we’re getting married, open your ears, boy!” Laszlo snapped.

“ _ Why? _ ”

“They were rubbing it in, talking about dresses and invitations!” Laszlo hissed, then lowered his voice. His hands were shaking. “We’re not  _ actually _ getting married, of course.”

Guillermo couldn’t hold in the laughter any longer. The way Laszlo stared at him wide-eyed and panic-stricken, as if he were making a deal with the devil and not some pathetic lovesick human; the air of humiliation that he emanated; the  _ fear _ …it was, quite frankly, fucking hilarious. Guillermo made that known as he doubled over and fought for air between giggles and hiccups.

“What are you doing?” Laszlo yelled. “What’s so funny about this?”

“Nothing,” Guillermo gasped, straightening and wiping an eye. “Nothing. Except that maybe that was the worst proposal of all time.”

“That was  _ not _ a proposal!” Laszlo pointed a stern finger at him. “How  _ dare _ you even humour the notion that I would want to marry  _ you _ .”

That only made Guillermo laugh harder, and then let out a series of “ _ ow’s _ ” as the pressure built in the wound in his head. Maybe he’d knocked something loose last night.

“All I need you to do is  _ pretend _ , Gizmo,” Laszlo said as arrogantly as possible, reaching for whatever dignity he still had left. “You are good at pretending to be a little vampire slayer, aren’t you? Prancing around with your little sticks and vials of water. So surely you can pretend to—”

One blink and Laszlo’s head was being yanked back painfully by the hair. He didn’t even have time to cry out before feeling the impossibly sharp edge of a blade at his neck. No…not a blade. A  _ stake _ . The silver burned into his skin, leaving a mark that would take more than just a few seconds to heal.

“Luckily for you, I’m very good at pretending,” Guillermo said in his ear.

Laszlo gulped, opened his mouth to speak, then thought the better of it. Guillermo slowly let go of him and removed the stake. He rounded Laszlo with a little smirk, then went off to unpack the shopping bags.

“Well, that’s settled then,” Laszlo said dryly. He cleared his throat, adjusting his hair and blouse. Then, in a poor attempt at changing the subject and alleviating the sudden tension, he nodded at Guillermo’s shopping. “What’s in the bags?”

“A disguise,” Guillermo said, keeping his answer as cryptic as possible.

Laszlo scanned the several shopping bags, raising an eyebrow in the process. “You know, the trick to a good disguise is to keep things as simple as possible. Look at Mr. Daytona—”

“—I needed some new clothes,” Guillermo cut in quickly. “Because, y’know, some of us don’t like wearing the same outfits for two hundred years.”

Laszlo scoffed. “Did you purchase more carpet sweaters?”

Guillermo pointedly ignored him. Presently he was rummaging through a paper tote. “I  _ also _ got an outfit or two for my fiancé.”

“ _Fiancé?”_ Laszlo snapped. “When the fuck did you get a _fiancé_? I just told Nandor and Nadja that _we_ were getting married and now you drop this bucket of horse excrement on me? _Fuck_!”

Guillermo groaned inwardly and gave Laszlo a tired, spiritless look. “You know, I used to think Nandor was the stupidest vampire alive, yet I put most of it down to cultural and historical differences.  _ You _ , however—” he stopped rifling to wave a finger at Laszlo, “—have him beat. And you don’t have  _ half _ as many excuses as him for being as dumb as you are.”

“What are you getting at, boy?” Laszlo growled.

“I bought outfits for  _ you _ ,” Guillermo explained with a sigh that bemoaned defeat. “The fiancé thing was a joke, you know? Because we’re getting married?”

“Pretend married,” Laszlo corrected.

“Yes. Whatever.  _ Pretend _ married.”

Later, Guillermo would wonder what the hell had come over him, to have threatened Laszlo in such a bold way, stake at the neck, whispering in his ear. But at the moment that was the farthest thing from his mind. For now, he was busy trying to slot together this bizarre alternate universe he’d found himself thrust into; a universe where Colin actually managed to get a date, and where he himself had managed to get into the mess of pretend-marrying a vampire he’d spent the past twelve years despising.

The only thing he could do was roll with this strange new world, and try to come out of its inevitable doomsday in one whole piece. Preferably laughing.


	11. Have A Drink On Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jackie Daytona and Mickey Greenburg bond over bar-hunting and near-death experiences
> 
> Colin gets a date

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As usual, huuuuuuuuge thank you to UV_Duv for beta-ing and giving the most amazing suggestions and ideas!! And a huuuuuuuge thankyou to readers too, I love you <333

**Colin** : Hi Amy. If you aren’t busy, thoughts on accompanying yours truly to a city council meeting tomorrow night?

**Amy** : Hi Colin! I’d love to but that lit exam I’m studying for is wed morning. Sorry!! Sounds like a fun night, though!

**Colin** : Could I propose a joint study sesh? I’ll admit, my knowledge of Petrarch is pretty limited but I could at least bring dinner, maybe learn a thing or two from the expert.

**Amy** : Really? You would? I’d love that :)

**Colin** : Sure. How does 7pm sound? Italian?

**Amy** : Anything vegetarian. Thank you! <3

**Colin** : It’s a date ;^)

\---

Colin couldn’t help the goofy, crooked grin on his face. Not only because he was thinking back to his text exchange with Amy earlier that day, and the fact that she seemed keen for a cozy night in poring over The Canzoniere and eating pasta with  _ him _ , but also because the enthusiasm written over his face was making Laszlo feel very uncomfortable, which made for a fine midnight snack. The bloodsucker was sprawled out on the bed, glaring conspicuously at his roommate. The paperback he’d plucked from Gizmo’s duffel bag –  _ My Vampire Bad Boy _ – lay open, page-down on his belly; temporarily forgotten.

“The fuck are you grinning at?” he asked leerily.

“You two look cute together,” Colin said with a shrug, his eyes flashing blue for a fraction of a second.

“What, me and Laurent here?” Laszlo screwed his nose up, tapping at the muscular, shirtless, very human-looking supernatural entity on the cover. “For the record, despite what this author implies, us blood-drinking vampires are  _ fully _ capable of eating and fucking at the same time.”

“I was talking about Gizmo, actually,” Colin said, his voice taking up its usual monotone again. “Or did you forget about the little human muffin curled up under your armpit there?”

Laszlo unexpectedly guffawed at that. Colin winced.

“He may be about as sophisticated as a head of cabbage, but – and it pains me to say this – I’m growing fond of the boy.” Laszlo glanced down at the shadowy lump burrowed into his side and the tiny smile that flickered across his face was almost wistful. “He’s a sassy little dumpling, this one. Reminds me of me when I was a boy. Well…had I been a pathetic virgin with no spine and terrible hair.”

Colin grinned again, but this time it was because Laszlo, in all his prideful ignorance, failed to notice that Guillermo was still awake. The energy radiating from the human was sweet and tart; hot and cold. Each element of humiliation and anticipation and longing complemented the others, dashed with a generous serving of nerves. How could Laszlo not hear that galloping heart? Colin could see the energy circling the bed like an aura, and it throbbed with the boy’s lively pulse.

They had been in Clairton eight days now and in that time Colin had noticed a slow but steady shift in the dynamics of their little oddball trio. Namely, it was looking less and less a trio and more a  _ duo _ . But that was okay; Colin loved being an awkward third wheel, and on top of that, he was slowly building his own twosome with a lady that was…well…tolerating him surprisingly well.

He was genuinely excited about his upcoming date (technically not a date, but he  _ was _ buying her dinner and she  _ did _ sign off with a heart emoji). It was kind of against psychic vampire nature to feel emotions such as nervousness, but they were not completely immune to it, and Colin couldn’t remember the last time he had butterflies like these. If he wasn’t careful, he’d drain  _ himself _ . This realization had him scrambling for something to take his mind off it.

“So I was thinking, Laz-man,” he said at length, attuned to his roommates’ energies. “Maybe it’s time to split up? Room-wise, I mean.”

Laszlo’s energy spiked momentarily, almost like a skipping heartbeat, and it took on a more crimson hue. Fright. Danger. Confusion. His glance at the energy vampire was mostly impassive, but Colin saw through it.

“Why the fuck would you want to do that?” he mumbled with relative indifference. His energy was starting to sour, but in the most delicious way possible. Like lemon dressing on a salad, enjoyed on a warm summery night.

“Well, I’ve been resting in this chair for days now.”

Laszlo waved him off. His face was buried in the paperback again, but it did nothing to hide his emotions. “You don’t need a bed; I’ve never once seen you sleep.”

“I’m not immune to a sore ass, though,” Colin pointed out. An idea crept into his head and he had to suppress a scampish grin. “Unless you want to swap for a few nights? I’ll sleep in the bed with Gizmo, and you can take the chair. I mean, you don’t need to sleep until morning anyway.”

Oh, the  _ energy _ . It was positively tingling; washing over him like a cool, pleasant mist.

“You can take that idea and—”

“Plus I’m sure Gizmo could use the privacy.” This was good.  _ Too _ good. The color of Laszlo’s energy was cooling into an orange-yellow; fruity and tart. Flavors and auras differed from person to person, but after all this time Colin could read Laszlo’s well. He could taste each emotion as though it were its own portion of a five-star buffet: confusion and disconcertedness at the forefront (this was Laszlo battling with his emotions; trying to explain them away in any way possible that didn’t involve his developing feelings for Gizmo…feelings that he was still, for the most part, stubbornly ignoring), with accents of uncertainty, sorrow, loneliness, longing and…affection.

Oh boy, Laszlo was besotted. Infatuated. Twitterpated.

“Why would Gizmo need privacy?” the vampire asked. He sounded genuinely confused…which wasn’t surprising, given the fact that he was usually the loudest vampire at an orgy.

“Well, I’m not all that familiar with single, 30-year-old human males who also happen to be virgins, but he  _ does _ spend a lot of time in that bathroom. I think he would appreciate his own personal abode.”

Laszlo’s energy was abating a little, and not only because Colin was actively draining him. He was finally beginning to get his emotions in check; scheming behind Gizmo’s paperback of homoerotic ab-riddled nightwalkers. The human’s energy had long since died off, signaling that his attempts at counting sheep had finally come to fruition.

“Tomorrow evening, Jackie Daytona will be taking a trip into town and looking for a human bar in need of proprietorship. After said bar has been acquired, we will have our separate  _ abodes _ .”

Now it was Colin’s turn to be confused. He’d heard bits of Laszlo’s plan as it was told to Guillermo, but he failed to see how taking ownership of a bar would help their living arrangements.

“Jackie will take the cellar,” Laszlo continued, as if reading his thoughts, “Mickey will take the kitchen, and I’m sure there will be a bathroom or some such for you.”

Colin made to comment on all the things wrong with that idea, but a name jumped out at him. “Mickey?”

“Mickey Greenburg!” Laszlo announced in his best showman’s voice, flinging Guillermo’s paperback halfway across the room in some kind of flamboyant gesture. Beside him, Guillermo smacked his lips. “Gizmo’s _alternate_ _ego_.”

“Mickey Greenburg?” Colin let out a short chiff. “Huh. Very  _ eighties college jock _ .”

“And therefore a perfect choice,” Laszlo said decidedly.

For once, Colin didn’t feel like educating an eighteenth-century aristocrat on the social structures within modern educational institutions, so he let it go.

*****

Jackie checked his watch: 8:25. Laszlo usually opted for a pocket watch, but a wristwatch was a necessary accessory for a regular human bartender. With much encouragement from Gizmo, he’d begrudgingly agreed to try on one of the outfits the human had purchased for him. He wasn’t fond of the fuzzy chocolate-colored coat, nor the silvery patterning on the button-up shirt underneath, but the boy had seemed to think he looked very smart. And Jackie liked looking very smart.

“Will you hurry up in there?” Jackie called now through the bathroom door. “We have a lot of ground to cover tonight and I  _ intend _ to cover it.”

“Almost…done!” a muffled voice called back. There was a hollow  _ thunk _ as something metallic dropped into the sink’s basin, and a moment later the door flung open. Jackie took an automatic step back as Guillermo rushed out, the bright fluorescent light of the bathroom haloing him. He was grinning, albeit a little sheepishly, and Jackie could see why. His eyebrows shot to his hairline as he took in the boy’s disguise.

“Say hello to…Mike? Mick?”

“Mickey Greenburg,” Jackie mumbled distractedly. In all Laszlo’s twelve years of

knowing the boy, the least depressing thing he’d seen him wear was a funeral suit. Gizmo’s new look was sharp. He’d replaced his round, wire-framed glasses with bold rectangular frames. He’d combed his hair back with some kind of oil that kept it from curling over his forehead, and his outfit was smart but casual: a long-sleeved navy shirt, faded jeans and polished dress shoes. Laszlo knew from his own flawless disguise that one or two changes to a person’s appearance could render them practically unrecognizable. Without the ugly sweaters (or plain turtlenecks and T-shirts in these warmer months), the round glasses and khakis, Mickey Greenburg looked…charming.

Jackie  _ hmphed _ . “It will do,” he said around his toothpick, snatching his Stetson from the bed and fixing it onto his head. From the corner of his eye, he saw the boy’s shoulders drop. He tamped down the confusion and frustration that had been rising within him for days and said in his most encouraging voice, “Chin up, my boy. You’re Mickey now.”

*****

“Where to first?” Mickey asked, taking out his little telephonic device and filling the cab of the Flex with blinding white light. Jackie looked down at the list they’d written out earlier that evening. The scrawl was tiny and garbled, and Jackie briefly wondered if all modern-day humans shared such deficits in their handwriting skills.

“The… Flying Lime …” he said slowly, before reading out the address with some difficulty. “Who the fuck taught you to write? Your blind wetnurse?”

“Huh?” was all Mickey could say. Jackie rolled his eyes.

The Flying Lime was a hip, bustling little venue on the outskirts of Clairton, and Mickey felt the energy emanating from it immediately. They pulled up out the front and wound down the windows to inspect the Tiki-style tavern.

“Oh that is cute,” Mickey said with a grin, sticking his head out the window to breathe in the smell of spice and alcohol, and take in the sight of the thatched eaves and bamboo torches that lined the veranda leading into the bar proper.

“I hate that,” Jackie said simply.

Mickey turned to him with a frown. “What?”

The regular human bartender waved dismissively towards his companion. “Too many people. And what kind of abomination is that man’s outfit?”

Mickey followed his gaze to a small group of young men and women standing on the veranda, chatting and sipping their various beverages. He saw nothing out of the ordinary.

“What are you talking about? Which man?” he pressed.

“The one with the long hair. The fuck is he wearing?”

“…Flannel?”

“Disgusting,” Jackie spat. “Next place, Mickey.”

Mickey sighed and picked up his phone.

The next place was a corner pub of plain red brick surrounded by lines of identical motorbikes. The small landing that led from the street was filled with bikers sporting varying degrees of baldness. The sign that flickered on the face of the building read ‘Little Horse Brewhouse’.

“Not a horse in sight,” Jackie said disappointedly. “Next place.”

“Seriously? Your biggest concern is the lack of horses?” Mickey huffed, taking out his phone. 

“It’s false advertising!” Jackie insisted.

Mickey rolled his eyes. He didn’t like the look of the place, anyway.

They continued on to the next bar, and the next, Jackie pettily picking out faults with each establishment. The Dandy Bee Brewery was too dandy, and there was a distinct lack of bees. Terry’s Taproom looked like “a latrine”. The Merry Pint Hideout was anything  _ but _ Merry (Mickey was pretty sure that guy sprawled on the lawn was dead). Even the Smirking Jester, which looked all kinds of lewd, wasn’t of interest to the regular human bartender.

“Are we okay?” Mickey blurted as they pulled away from the Jester and its saucy red lights.

Jackie grimaced around his toothpick. He looked somehow paler than usual. “What do you mean?”

“Well, you’ve hardly spoken to me since your  _ proposal _ —”

“I told you, that was  _ not _ a proposal.”

“—And you seem  _ really  _ irritated. Like, more than usual.” Mickey kept his eyes on the road, feeling a swell of nervousness rise in his stomach. Guillermo and Laszlo approached feelings with all the grace of pubescent boys, but maybe Jackie would be more open? When the regular human didn’t reply, Mickey continued in a rush. “For what it’s worth, I’m okay with this fake marriage thing. I mean it’s a stupid idea but there’s no harm in it, right? I’m bored out of my  _ brains _ and goading Nandor like this is kind of fun.”

“I’m fine,” Jackie said, though he sounded anything but, his voice coming out breathless and somewhat wistful. “I miss my dear wife. My darkest lady. My mistress of the night.”

Mickey raised an eyebrow, part in amusement, part in concern; Jackie sounded a little delirious. He hazarded a glance at the man and almost slammed on the breaks. Jackie’s head lolled back, and he stared through the windshield with glassy eyes; eyes that reflected the streetlamps and neon storefront signs outside.

“ _ Shit _ ,” Mickey hissed, searching the street for a safe place to pull over. Their list of bars had ended with the Smirking Jester, and so he’d been driving aimlessly, keeping an eye out for any establishments in the vicinity they may have missed. Now they were in a busy street populated with late-night cafes and takeout stores. “Shit,” Mickey repeated, pulling over in front of an Indian takeout and cutting the engine. He took off his seatbelt and leaned over to Jackie, whose eyelids were now drooping.

“Jackie?” he prompted, lightly tapping the man on the cheek. “Hey, are you okay? Jackie? Laszlo?”

“ _ Errhgmmf _ ,” Jackie assured.

“What the fuck,” Mickey hissed under his breath. He checked for traffic, then flung his door open and raced around to the passenger side. Jackie nearly slumped out of the car when he opened the door. Mickey caught his toothpick just in time and placed it in Jackie’s breast pocket. Then they were Laszlo and Guillermo again; Guillermo cupping Laszlo’s cheek with one hand and smacking him gently with the other.

“Hey! What’s wrong?” he said loudly, panic rising in his chest. “Laszlo! Can you hear me? Tell me what’s wrong!”

Laszlo mumbled some unintelligible response and closed his eyes. Beneath the city lights, his skin was deathly pale, almost translucent…

It hit Guillermo like a gut punch. “Laszlo, when did you last eat?”

“Mnn—Nadja…we wuud hunt…toguthrrr…” Laszlo slurred.

“Oh fuck,” Guillermo groaned. “Fucking… _ fuck _ . When did you last  _ eat _ ?”

“Th--wench…” Laszlo mumbled.

“The… _ Laszlo _ ! That was a fucking week ago!” Guillermo lifted his hands to his head and looked around helplessly. The street was dark enough to maybe obscure a vampire feeding, but grabbing somebody in such a populated area was risky, if not downright stupid. He didn’t have time to plan.

Laszlo opened his eyes just long enough to look at Guillermo with something like realization. “I wasn’t hun...hungry,” he said in a small, almost apologetic voice. Then he groaned, eyes squeezing shut as if in pain. “Guess I…frr…shit. My Nadja...”

“Fuck’s sake,” Guillermo hissed. He knew what he had to do. He leaned in close to Laszlo, resting his arm on the doorframe. “If you drink some of my blood, will that give you enough strength to hunt?”

“Bugger…off…”

“Laszlo, this is serious. You’re going to die.” Those words settled whatever indecision Guillermo was feeling, and he climbed into the passenger side, straddling Laszlo and shutting the door behind him. To say it was cramped, that it was close and far too intimate, was an understatement, but Guillermo didn’t care at this point.

Laszlo could hardly move, but he did make various noises of protest, all of which Guillermo shot down with, “I don’t care what you say, you’re going to bite me.”

“Your…terrible…expensive shirt,” Laszlo tried. Guillermo smirked in spite of himself and quickly unbuttoned, tearing the shirt off and exposing a black undershirt beneath – any blood stains would at least be less visible against black.

“Do it,” Guillermo said, tilting his head back to expose his neck.

“Fuck…off…”

“ _ Do it _ , or I’ll grab the knife in my bag and—”

“Don’t…w—lose…con…roll.”

“Shut up,” Guillermo growled. He grabbed the back of Laszlo’s head and shoved his face against the crook of his neck. Laszlo nuzzled against him immediately, like a newborn searching desperately for its first feed. Guillermo heard him inhale, but he didn’t move any further. Guillermo’s hands began to shake and tears sprung to his eyes, and he squeezed Laszlo’s hair tight in his grip.

Laszlo opened his mouth, and Guillermo felt the sharp prick of fangs against his skin and shivered. Another second of hesitation, and then the vampire bit down, teeth slicing into Guillermo’s skin, piercing flesh and vein. The pain would have been excruciating if it weren’t for the adrenaline that coursed through him. Instead it was needle-like, with an after-burn not unlike an inoculation. Or, perhaps more appropriately, the shot of morphine before a lethal injection. He was paralyzed from neck-down, hands clawed helplessly in Laszlo’s hair as the vampire’s arms enveloped him and pulled him closer. Laszlo’s mouth caressed Guillermo’s neck with all the fervor of new love, lapping and suckling at his sweet blood; the first blood that had ever been given to him voluntarily. The more the vampire drank, the more Guillermo noticed the strength return to his arms, until it got to the point where he was crushing the human.

There was a sudden loud rap on the window. Laszlo slipped his teeth out of Guillermo’s neck immediately and glanced out the passenger window. A middle-aged man had his face pressed against the glass, squinting down at them while his mouth moved. They both heard the muffled voice, but neither could make sense of it under Guillermo’s thundering heartbeat and Laszlo’s addled brain.

“Laszlo,” Guillermo rasped, arms dropping limply onto the vampire’s shoulders. A primal fear had begun gnawing at the back of his mind, and now it was coming on strong as he felt his energy slip away. Laszlo regarded him a moment, his eyes even darker than usual. The glassiness was gone from them, at least. Guillermo’s own vision was suddenly frosting around the edges.

Laszlo turned his attention to the stranger again and lifted a hand to the window, swirling it before the silhouette. “Go fuck yourself,” he said in a drowsy, hypnotising voice.

The man immediately straightened his back and walked away. Guillermo couldn’t help the pained grin that came to his lips, though with it came a terrible sting in his neck, and he winced. His thoughts were on the vampire beneath him, though, and it was only now he realized he was lightly cupping Laszlo’s cheek.

“Are you okay?” he asked in a whisper.

“Eh,” Laszlo managed, stretching his neck away from Guillermo’s touch. His voice sounded stronger, at least. He was panting, apparently overcome by the blood that was now trickling down the side of his mouth and getting caught in his beard. Guillermo scrambled off his lap with some difficulty and reached for his bag in the backseat. He used the rest of his energy to yank it onto his lap, digging out a small towel and an unlabeled jar of whitish-clear liquid.

Laszlo’s eyes slid exhaustedly to the human as Guillermo began to treat the new puncture wounds.

“That’s not what I think it is, is it?” he asked huskily.

“Yes, it is,” Guillermo replied, wincing as he applied the ointment. “Turns out certain…vampire fluids…have great healing properties.”

Laszlo gave a lewd chuckle at that, his bloody lips curling into a smirk.

_ Nice to see you’re feeling better _ , Guillermo thought resentfully. “You didn’t notice the other vampire bite is gone?”

“I was a little preoccupied, boy.” Laszlo looked away, out the windshield at the busy night. His face was suddenly sad. Guillermo’s heart clenched, thinking back to what he’d said about Nadja. Without thinking, he reached over and squeezed the vampire’s shoulder.

“Hey, it’s okay,” he soothed. “It’s not forever, remember? Before you know it, we’ll be back in Staten Island and Nadja will be yours again.”

“They sent out invitations,” Laszlo said flatly. “They never send out invitations.”

“It’s only been a week, Laszlo.”

Laszlo hummed in half-hearted agreement. Guillermo reluctantly slid his hand away before it got awkward, and adjusted the towel on his neck. They sat for a while in companionable silence, watching the nightlife go on undisturbed, until Laszlo let out a melodramatic sigh.

“Guillermo?” he said, a little hesitantly.

“Hmm?”

“You weren’t aroused.”

Guillermo flung his head around so quickly he winced. “ _ What _ ?”

Laszlo gave a one-sided shrug. “Why, usually when I bite a human, they become very aroused. Sometimes they even try to touch themselves. Sometimes they ask for help while they’re dying.”

“Wha—why are you telling me this, Laszlo? ” Guillermo was probably more flustered over his own burning blush than what had actually come out of the vampire’s mouth. He just hoped his face didn’t betray any deeper feelings…whatever those feelings were.

“Just an observation,” Laszlo said, his voice tinged with sorrow. “It’s usually a sensual experience, I’m just curious if there was any reason why—”

“Oh my g—Laszlo, you were literally  _ dying _ ! I was trying to save you! Being…well…that was the last thing on my mind!” Guillermo sat back and exhaled in disbelief.  _ If the ground can just come up and swallow me whole right now.  _ “Laszlo, you should have come to me. I could have helped you hunt.”

“I can hunt just fine myself,” Laszlo growled stubbornly. “I told you I simply wasn’t hungry. Invitations, Gizmo…”

Guillermo had to stop himself from rolling his eyes. His neck hurt like hell, the adrenaline starting to wear off, and he just wanted to go back to the motel and sleep. But Laszlo needed a proper supper first.

“Will you hold this against my neck?” he asked the vampire, squeezing the towel at his wound for emphasis. “Gonna be hard enough to drive as it is.”

“How far are we from the inn?” Laszlo asked, obeying and resting his hand firmly against the human’s delicious, bloody neck.

Guillermo turned the ignition and the Flex grumbled back to life. “We’re not going back to the motel yet. You need to eat.”

Laszlo gave a dismissive scoff but said nothing more.

*****

Guillermo had never seen Laszlo feed. Any other night he might’ve been eager to find out if he was as violent as the other vampires said he was (they always said it in a half-joking way, after all). But tonight he stayed in the car, dizzy from the blood loss and the scare. His muscles ached and his head pounded, but the sting in his neck was slowly subsiding as the  _ ointment _ did its job.

When the vampire emerged from the shadows, the front of his shirt and the collar of his coat were soaked black. He climbed into the car silently and Guillermo started the ignition, before pulling out of the park’s near-empty parking lot. One of the remaining cars would be looking for a new owner soon.

“What time is it?” Laszlo asked after a while.

“It’s right  _ there _ on the screen,” Guillermo said, gesturing to the bright square above the radio.

“I am too heavyhearted to look in that direction,” Laszlo said woefully.

Guillermo stifled an annoyed sigh. “Almost midnight. We should probably head back.”

“What if Jackie doesn’t find a bar?” Laszlo sounded utterly depressed. This wasn’t like him at all. Guillermo racked his brains for something to say that might make him feel better, but in reality, he knew so very little about him. And anything he said was at risk of being met with scorn.

“He’ll find one,” he said finally, trying to force some positivity into his exhausted voice. “There are still plenty we haven’t looked at yet. Tomorrow night?”

Laszlo rolled his head to look at Guillermo. “Tomorrow night,” he mumbled. Then, as an aside, “You’re sure you weren’t aroused?”

This time Guillermo laughed. It was preferable to crying.


	12. Boys in Town

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jackie finds a bar to take over. The boys receive a call from Nandor and Nadja. Things get weirdly sexy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again UV_Duv deserves a huuuge thank you for beta-ing! Especially since I threw Chapters 12, 13, and 14 at her in succession :B And huuuge thank you to my readers! I hope you enjoy this chapter. Chapters 13 and 14 should be posted in the coming days.

“I would like to have the wedding at the bar,” Jackie decided, strutting out of the bathroom like the monochrome peacock he was.

Mickey gaped up at him. “W-wedding? I thought this whole thing was fake?”

“Do you really think Nandor and Nadja are going to take our word for it?” Jackie said with a snide grimace. Mickey opened his mouth to argue, but Jackie continued at a leisurely pace. “No, they won’t. Hence, we need a ceremony, with witnesses and many photographic devices to capture the moment. I have organized rings—”

Mickey dropped the vampire erotica he’d been reading (Jackie hoped that he hadn’t lost Laszlo’s page). “ _ What _ ?” he gasped. “When did you do that?”

“Last night, my boy. Let’s just say it was a wedding gift from the bartender I ate.”

“You can’t--You’re deranged.”

“Thank you. Now…how do I look?”

Mickey screwed his nose up at the regular human. He was dressed smartly enough in a typical white blouse and black vest, his toothpick already between his teeth. But he was rather…wet.

“You’d look better if you weren’t dripping water.” Mickey reached out and grabbed the towel draped over the end of the bed.

“Oh I wouldn’t touch that,” Jackie said, eyes darting to the fluffy white linen. Mickey’s grimace only deepened. He dropped the towel at the foot of the bed and went into the bathroom.  _ What does Laszlo do while I’m asleep?  _ The thought came unbidden to his head, and Mickey shook it away, feeling his cheeks go hot. He’d spent the past few nights, since Laszlo’s bite, souped up on painkillers in order to sleep. In fact, he’d slept a  _ lot _ . Laszlo had left the house alone every night since, and every time he returned, Guillermo would be dead to the world. When he awoke around midday, Guillermo would find a slumbering Laszlo’s feet dangerously close to his face.

The bite had all but healed now and the inflammation that had racked Guillermo over the past few nights had faded into a dull ache. He’d spent most of the day sleeping off a mean rebound headache. Upon waking he was still drowsy, but decided against taking more narcotics. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how Mickey looked at it), Jackie’s bizarre dedication to their false wedding had shaken off most of his lingering sleepiness. 

“Here,” Mickey said, emerging with a clean towel. Jackie took it with a small bow that rewarded Mickey with several droplets of water to the face. He began to cautiously dab at his hair, eyes flicking sheepishly to the human. Mickey watched him jadedly for a few moments, then sighed.

“I suppose Nadja would dry your hair for you?” he deadpanned.

“Of course not! I just forgot my dryer.”

“Mhmm.” Mickey snatched the towel off him, eliciting a tiny inhuman hiss from the regular human. He draped the towel over Jackie’s head and violently mussed his hair.

“Easy!” Jackie admonished.

“Shush,” Mickey admonished back. As he dried Jackie’s hair, his mind began to wander to practicalities. He’d spent his few hours of wakefulness these past few days googling how to run a business, though he hadn’t retained an ounce of information. Even more pressing, though, were the legalities. There was not one piece of paperwork in that establishment with Jackie Daytona’s name written (or typed) upon it. And Jackie had boasted just this evening that a few of the locals had recognized him the night before and had welcomed him back, so he was apparently well-known here.

Mickey let out a little involuntary groan. Why must he live surrounded by idiots?

“Chin up, boy,” Jackie said from under the towel, having heard the noise. “This won’t last forever.”

“I sure hope not,” Mickey muttered under his breath. The last thing he needed was the complication of a district court case.

“Alrighty, I’m packed!” Colin said from his corner. Truth be told he didn’t really  _ have _ anything to pack. And he wasn’t feeding on them, for once. His eyes were glued to his phone screen and had been for most of the evening; one ear hooked up to an earpiece.

“Whatever has you so captivated on that infernal little display?” Jackie demanded, finally smacking away the towel. Mickey went back to the bathroom for the comb.

“Oh, it’s a series of lectures on Youtube about historiography,” Colin piped up, though his eyes never left the screen.

“Histori— _ what _ ?” That was Mickey.

“Amy is taking a class on it. ‘The study of the writing of history’. Or as Amy likes to say, ‘the history of history’. Heh.”

“Don’t suppose y’all be knockin’ boots with ya gal on this fahn evenin’?” Jackie asked in what was definitely the worst Southern accent Mickey – and Guillermo – had ever heard.

“I’m going to assume you’re asking me about my relationship with Amy,” Colin said at length, dropping his phone to his side to give them his full attention. “We’ve only known each other for a few days but between you and me – and Gizmo there –“

“Mickey,” Jackie corrected. "It's Mickey if he's wearing the chain."

“He means this!” Mickey hurriedly lifted the little chain around his neck, eyes darting to Jackie helplessly. “Not…you know…an actual… _ chain _ …” he trailed off stupidly.

Colin blessedly ignored him. "I think next time I see her I might just buckle up and ask her on a real date. Maybe get in some hand-holding action.” He rubbed his palms together. 

Jackie glared at the energy vampire.

“But you two will be relieved to hear that I’m staying in tonight,” Colin continued. “Would hate to miss our first night in the new bachelor pad!”

Mickey’s expression mirrored Jackie’s as they exchanged looks of pure dread.

Colin picked up on this and added with a wink (because he was required to by the supernatural laws of psychic vampirism), “Unless…of course…you two need some alone time?”

*****

Laszlo had found the bar,  _ Snake Charmer Alehouse _ , by complete accident during one of his hunts, and it was purportedly everything Jackie  _ and _ Laszlo had been looking for in an establishment. Situated on Miller Avenue, it was a squat, two-story brick building that had been built sometime in the 50s and in the past seventy-odd years of its life had probably seen the maintenance guy a total of two times. What Jackie (and Laszlo)  _ really _ liked about the place, aside from its low maintenance, quiet but populated location and friendly patrons, was that there were in fact three levels to the place. The pub itself made up the sprawling first floor, and this, at least, had been kept relatively well-maintained, despite looking like something straight out of an 80s crime show.

If one walked down the back hall, past the kitchen doors, they would come across a narrow rickety staircase that led to the upper floor. This floor had been converted to a one-bedroom apartment with all the luxuries and cleanliness of a house lived in for forty years by a greasy, single male. Or if they decided to descend the opposite staircase, below the bar there was a generous wine cellar, basement, and two walk-in fridges.

Henry Charmer himself had been anything but charming: in his seventies, bald as a baby baboon’s arse and covered in liver-spots, with a mouth that was nearly chin-level from years of scowling. Mr. Charmer died as he lived; scowling his way to the grave, and scowling still when Laszlo dumped his saggy, drained body in the Monongahela river. After the bartender’s generous (but nutritiously lacking and possibly diseased) gift of blood, Laszlo had gone back to the apartment atop the alehouse and searched through the old man’s belongings. Photos, letters, printed emails and thick ledgers told Laszlo that Henry had been a single widower these past twenty years, with no children and no next of kin. The bar had been passed down to him from his father, whose death had rewarded Henry a rather paltry inheritance that he’d used to renovate the place. Medical records and specialist letters assured that Henry was well on his way to the next life. Laszlo wasn’t entirely sure what a  _ mesothelioma  _ was, but he knew enough about the human body to know that ailments with long names were usually more dire than shorter names.

Laszlo had cured Mr. Charmer’s disease either way, and subsequently came up with a vague but believable story for his sudden disappearance, so the intricacies hardly mattered. Well…they hardly mattered to Laszlo and Jackie, at least. Mickey was another story.

The drive to the pub was filled with his incessant scrupling, peppered with input from Colin Robinson, who seemed to be thoroughly getting off on the bickering.

“I just think that if the cops come knocking, we should have our stories straight,” Mickey was saying from the driver’s seat.

“Ha!” Jackie hooted from around his toothpick. “That’s rich coming from  _ you _ , boy.”

“And what’s that supposed to mean?” There was venom in Mickey’s voice.

“Well, look at you…you are anything  _ but  _ straight. You may as well be wearing a flashing sign on your head that says ‘ravish me, boys’.”

Mickey clearly hadn’t been expecting that reply, judging by the way he struggled for words and then shut his mouth.

Colin chuckled from the backseat. “Marriage is going to suit you two,” he observed.

Both human and…regular human…turned to look at him briefly in confusion, then Mickey’s eyes returned to the road and Jackie’s returned to casually looking at their driver…then away, then back, then away.

“Hypnosis,” Jackie said finally.

“Huh?” said Mickey.

“As if you haven’t heard of it. If anyone starts asking questions, I’ll simply hypnotize them.”

Jackie ensured the bar remained closed while the trio got everything in order and moved in. There wasn’t an awful lot of ‘moving in’ to be done, though. Jackie had made a hand-written sign for the window that announced: UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT. GRAND OPENING TOMORROW (he had no fucking idea what the actual date was). As for living arrangements, Colin claimed the one small bedroom, explaining that if he and Amy were to take things further, he would prefer to have a private abode. Mickey did not have the spoons, nor the stomach, to argue. He took the couch, which was about thirty years old but thankfully of the fold-out type. Jackie took the closest thing he could find to a coffin: the deep freezer in the wine cellar below the bar.

Settling into his new bed on the first morning at the apartment, Guillermo felt a chill run down his spine. Since their nightly bar-hunting began, he’d grown accustomed to staying up all night and sleeping away the balmy summer days. It was 6am and Colin was snoring from his bedroom (despite having never shown evidence of requiring sleep), Laszlo was presumably in the cellar, and Guillermo was alone in the open-plan living area, listening to the muffled sounds of the city waking up outside, while breathing in the stale old-person smell that the previous occupant had left as his legacy. There was no explanation for the chill – it was a humid June morning; he was dressed lightly but wrapped in a warm blanket. He wasn’t cold. It was one of those foreboding chills that accompanies a flutter of butterflies in the stomach, some intuitive thing that warns of something big coming.

*****

Guillermo awoke twelve hours later, sticky with sweat but feeling fresh, having kicked off his blanket sometime during the day. As he rose, the fog that had taken over his sleep-deprived brain for the past few days lifted, and in its place came that same foreboding feeling he’d experienced last night as he’d drifted off to sleep. It kept his heart quick and his stomach queasy as he showered and dressed. He tried not to wonder why he felt this way, because his immediate concern was that something had happened to Laszlo. And he didn’t particularly want to race down to the cellar in his sweat-soaked pajamas to make sure he was okay. Instead, he ignored the feeling until he was properly washed and dressed, telling himself that that’s what any sane person would do.

After readying himself for the night, Guillermo went straight to the cellar, taking the steps two at a time. He knocked on the old door too hard, wincing as the sound echoed through the cramped stairwell. There was no response. He knocked again, just as loudly but with a sudden urgency, calling “Laszlo?” in the firmest voice he could manage. He was rewarded with a loud grumble from the other side.

“The fuck do you want?” Laszlo’s muffled voice rang out.

Guillermo was instantly relieved, and then embarrassed. He didn’t  _ really _ care this much, did he? Laszlo was an asshole. A horny asshole who managed to get his dick stuck in a hot tub. To feel anything but spite for him would be downright stupid. Guillermo paid no attention to the various thumpings from inside the cellar as he fought for some logic to these emotions. He’d saved Laszlo’s life the other night and now actively ensured he was fed every night. Why had he risked himself to do that? Because Laszlo had saved  _ him _ from the assassins, so it was just the proper thing to do, right?

The door groaned open and Guillermo startled, forgetting momentarily where he was. Laszlo’s hair was disheveled, his eyes dark and his mouth turned down in an annoyed frown. He wore a pair of drawers and nothing else. Guillermo tried not to gawk. He tried to keep his eyes level with Laszlo’s, but the vampire looked rather miffed and Guillermo found himself glancing away and of course the only place his brain could think to look was down. Unfortunately, vampires were not immune to morning wood. Even in the evening.

Guillermo’s brain short-circuited and he froze, staring at Laszlo’s erection as if it were a gun pointed at him. Well…it  _ was _ pointed at him.

“Do you know what time it is?” Laszlo grumbled.

Guillermo made some dumb “Uhh…uhhh” noises.

“Exactly. It’s too fucking early.” Laszlo stepped back from the doorway and made to slam the door shut, and it was mercifully enough to snap Guillermo out of his phallus-induced reverie. He shot a hand out to stop the door’s journey.

“Wait!” he said, and then wondered why he’d said that. He’d come down here to check on Laszlo. Laszlo was fine. Frazzled and horny, but fine. So why didn’t he want to leave? Why were these fatuous words suddenly forming on his tongue? Why was he suddenly spurting, “I think we should get married tonight!”

Laszlo squinted at him as if he’d grown another head, though maybe that was because he was tired and not comprehending his words. Guillermo prayed that was the case.

“Have you spoken to Nandor?” Laszlo asked finally. “Has something changed?”

Guillermo squeezed his eyes shut and breathed out through his nose. “No I just think…the sooner the better. If we get fake-married now, then the tension might break up Nandor and Nadja, you know? They might realize that their whole affair is silly and—”

“Yes, makes sense,” Laszlo said thoughtfully. For once, Guillermo was glad he was dealing with an idiot. He let out a sigh of relief, swallowing down the lump in his throat that felt suspiciously like his heart.

“But not tonight,” Laszlo continued, putting up a hand. “For I intend to enjoy my last night as a bachelor!”

“Laszlo we’re not  _ actually _ getting married,” Guillermo reminded him, though the swell of excitement rising in his chest was hard to ignore. “And, well, technically you’re still married to Nadja.” A sudden pang of disappointment gnawed at his guts and fought with the excitement, and he silently scolded himself. His heart sounded louder than a bus in his ears and he knew Laszlo could hear it too, and probably his heaving breaths as well. But if the sounds signified anything to the vampire, he did a good job at hiding it. Guillermo was suddenly aware of their proximity. Laszlo stood in the doorway, his feet crossing the threshold. Guillermo could move an inch forward and his shoes would touch the vampire’s toes and their bellies would probably meet and Laszlo’s bulge would maybe…

They stared at each other for a long time. Laszlo’s face was impassive, but there was something uncharacteristically sober about his eyes and the angle of his brow – something that could have been mistaken for disguised desire, if Guillermo thought that was at all possible. Either way, it had his stupid human brain fizzing out like a wet candlewick.

“It’s hot as a camel’s ball sack in here,” Laszlo grumbled finally, breaking the spell. “Is there a tub in the upstairs washroom?”

Guillermo exhaled through his mouth, then blushed at the resulting sound. “Only a shower,” he said, a little too huskily. He cleared his throat and tried not to think about the sorts of things Laszlo got up to in the shower. It was a futile attempt. He felt his cock twitch and was overcome with a sudden panic.

_ Why am I like this _ ? he groaned inwardly, turning away from the door robotically and walking upstairs, towards the door that would take him into the bar. He felt Laszlo’s eyes on his back as he ascended; as he came to the landing and turned the doorknob; as he realized with a pang of chagrin that he didn’t have the key.

“I don’t have the key,” he said uselessly, then continued up the stairs as quickly as he could to the apartment. He didn’t stop to look back at Laszlo, but it wasn’t hard to imagine the vampire rolling his eyes.

*****

An hour later, the  _ Charmer _ was officially open for business. Word had somehow spread (possibly thanks to Colin) that Jackie Daytona had returned to Clairton and taken ownership of another bar after  _ Lucky’s _ was devastatingly set ablaze. The regular human bartender was busy serving drinks and chatting to excited locals when Mickey walked through the main entrance, having just spent the past half-hour on a stroll while being interrogated over the phone by his concerned – and rather irate – mother.

He heard Jackie’s voice easily over the noise of the crowd; it wasn’t difficult to miss the boisterous, ridiculously British accent.

“There he is! Mickey, get over here!” He beckoned chummily from behind the bar, waving. A number of cheers rose up from the  _ Charmer’s _ patrons, and Guillermo forced himself to smile through his daze, taking on the more confident role of Mickey Greenburg as he wove his way through the merry crowd. Through the unintelligible chatter, Paul Rodgers was trying in vain to be heard from the old, failing jukebox by the bar:

_ Well, it's late and I want love _

_ Love that's gonna break me in two _

_ Don't you hang me up in your doorway _

_ Don't you hang up like you do. _

Mickey rounded the bar and could have leapt to the ceiling when Jackie flung an arm around his shoulders and squeezed him to his chest.

“My husband-to-be,” Jackie announced. With his free hand he lifted an untouched tankard of human beer, and the crowd hooted and yelled and lifted their own. The bartender dropped his stein back on the counter with a loud thud and put up a hand to hush the crowd that had formed around them. “Now please, if I may have your attention,” he called, though the room had already grown quiet, save for a few revelers at the back. “I’d like to announce that Mickey and I will be married  _ tomorrow _ night, at this very establishment.” He struck the counter with his index finger for emphasis. “And you are all invited. Bring your picture-taking devices! Bring your film boxes! Drinks are on the house!”

The crowd went wild. Mickey’s heart thundered. His brain was in another dimension. This was happening. This was really happening.

_ It’s fake _ , he reminded himself, exhaling a shuddery breath.  _ It’s all fake. _

Jackie gave him one more squeeze and then let go, and it gave Mickey the sensation of being catapulted out of orbit. He stumbled a little to the side, grasping the side of the counter for purchase. His legs felt weak.

This was ridiculous.

This bona fide douchebag, who a month ago couldn’t stand the sight of him and was now showing him a tiny scrap of attention because it was  _ kind of _ essential in order to make this fake marriage seem not fake, was making Mickey wobble at the knees? Sending him head over heels—?

_ No, no, no,  _ he scolded himself.  _ Not falling for him. I am  _ not _ falling for him. _

__ __ Yet the longer the night drew on, the more Mickey got to know Jackie Daytona. And the more he got to know Jackie Daytona, the softer his heart became for the dandy idiot. Laszlo was obnoxious, arrogant, lewd, and sometimes downright mean. Jackie, on the other hand, was warm, chummy, welcoming. Patrons came up to the bar throughout the night to offer their congratulations and chat to Mickey (who, at this point, was desperate to get away from the crowd but didn’t want to appear rude). It was through these strangers that Mickey learned what Jackie had achieved for the local women’s volleyball team and the community as a whole.

By the time Mickey turned the ‘OPEN’ sign to ‘CLOSED’ at midnight, he was – as Colin Robinson would endearingly put it – absolutely twitterpated.

Laszlo placed Jackie’s toothpick carefully on the kitchen counter and took in his surroundings. The apartment was swathed in shadows, the ancient lightbulb in the living room emitting a dark amber glow that resembled late afternoon sunlight slanting through dusty windows. The bulb in the kitchen had given up the ghost the moment he’d tried the switch. He glanced over at Guillermo’s empty bed, at the thin mattress and mess of sheets, and tried to remember what the hell he was doing here.

His head swam. It had probably been a bad idea to eat one of his patrons, especially one that he’d found passed out in a shrub behind the building, but he was nothing if not an opportunist. He vaguely remembered following Guillermo up the stairs and into the dark apartment. The human had opened his mouth to say something, but then had closed it again, a cloud of apprehension settling over his features. Laszlo had noticed in that moment a pair of faint puncture marks on the boy’s neck. Had he done that?

Guillermo came out of the bathroom now, wearing a robe and holding his phone, and Laszlo remembered why he was here. There had been missed calls on the little device, and Laszlo was curious what that meant, especially since Guillermo had hinted that it pertained to Nandor and Nadja.

The boy ambled towards the couch-bed, focusing on his phone’s screen, a murky green reflected in his downturned eyes.

“Should we call them back?” he asked uncertainly. The way he chewed on his bottom lip was, admittedly, doing things to Laszlo. Nevermind the plunging neckline of his loosely-tied robe that suggested he wasn’t wearing a shirt underneath. Laszlo tried to silently scold himself, then decided he was beyond that point now. There was no denying that somewhere along this bizarre road trip, he’d developed some kind of unfitting affection for the frumpy boy.

A shrill noise filled the quiet apartment suddenly, startling a little shriek out of Guillermo. He almost dropped his phone. The screen was flashing and Laszlo realized it was that ridiculous raunchy tune that played whenever somebody called.

“Is that them?” he asked, rushing forward.

Guillermo answered with a high-pitched, “ _ Yep _ .”

“Wait! Don’t answer!”

“Huh—?” Guillermo let out an audible  _ oof! _ as Laszlo barreled into him, grabbing the shrieking, vibrating phone from his hand and throwing it onto the bed. “Laszlo! What’re you—”

“Here, lad,” Laszlo growled. He grabbed the belt of Guillermo’s robe and yanked it. The fluffy cotton fell away from the man’s chest, slipping off his shoulders to pool around his forearms. Laszlo grunted and mussed Guillermo’s hair, eliciting confused protests from the human.

“W-what the fuck, Laszlo?” Guillermo gasped, swatting away his hands. Laszlo got to his knees on the mattress and tore off his vest, taking half the buttons on his blouse with it. The thin white shirt opened at his chest, revealing the patch of thick dark hair there…hair that definitely did  _ not _ render Guillermo speechless every time he saw it. Laszlo ruffled his own hair and then tackled a seated Guillermo onto his back while simultaneously reaching for the noisy phone.

Guillermo snatched it from him with a confused glare, panting from the exertion of…whatever the fuck that had been.

“Answer it,” Laszlo said hurriedly, climbing off the boy and rolling him onto his side, away from him, so that he could press his partly-clothed chest against the human’s bare upper back. He didn’t miss the shudder that vacillated down the boy’s spine as he craned his neck over Guillermo’s shoulder.

Guillermo hesitated, slowly cottoning on to Laszlo’s absurd intentions as he stared down at the names NADJA & NANDOR written in bold over the screen. Laszlo bucked his hips against Guillermo’s backside impatiently, eliciting a squeak from the man that would have had the vampire in fits of laughter if he weren’t so hung up on making this call go  _ perfectly _ .

Guillermo swiped the green button, and two painfully-familiar faces filled the display. Laszlo felt, through Guillermo’s back, the boy’s heart actually  _ stop _ for a second as the video call began. And then it started up again, a little too fast, matching the human’s breathing. Laszlo absently hoped that Guillermo wouldn’t faint or do some other involuntary human thing to spoil his plan.

The smile on Nadja’s face dropped the moment she saw her ex-husband and  _ his _ future husband.

“Really, Laszlo?” she said, unimpressed.

“Hello to you, too, my dear,” Laszlo said in a proud, beguiling voice. “It seems you caught my  _ husband-to-be _ and I in the middle of a romp.”

Nandor’s head looked about ready to pop off and fly away, propelled by the steam that would soon come firing out of his ears. His cheeks were as red as a vampire’s cheeks could get (which wasn’t very red, but still…Laszlo was thoroughly amused).

“That is bullshit, my donkey-headed old flame,” Nadja said with a roll of her eyes. “You have just taken his shirt off and made his hair messy—”

Laszlo ignored her, focusing in on the considerably more aggravated vampire who seemed to have forgotten had stolen his wife. “Nandor, let me tell you,” he said in a low mutter, inching closer to the screen over Guillermo’s shoulder. The boy’s heart fluttered stupidly. “Gizmo here is second to  _ none _ in bed. You’ve really missed the boat, chap.”

Nandor bared his fangs in a vicious snarl, the whites of his eyes filling with inky black.

“Nandor, darling, please calm the fuck down,” Nadja said in exasperation. “I can still smell Gizmo’s virginity from here.” A thought struck her then and she turned back to the camera. “Laszlo, you idiot, you say you have married this man but you cannot even get his name right!”

“We are not married  _ yet _ , my dethroned queen,” Laszlo said with a shrug, not missing a beat. Nadja rolled her eyes again.

“Actually,” Guillermo piped up, his voice soft and hesitant. “We were…uh…I mean…” Laszlo could still feel the boy’s heart through his back, giving him the phantom sensation of having a heartbeat himself. If it were Laszlo’s heart, however, it would be  _ calm _ and  _ quiet _ and not bounding along at the speed of sound. Guillermo took a deep breath, pressed his shoulders back against Laszlo, as if for support, and blurted, “We  _ were _ having sex actually, and it was really good like… _ amazingly _ good and wow…Nadja, why would you let go of a man like Laszlo? He’s…he’s… _ eep!” _

Guillermo startled at Laszlo’s sudden touch, and Laszlo stupidly startled at his startle. He had gently, tentatively, pressed his lips to the human’s bare shoulder; and now he did it again, eyes blazing into the screen. He didn’t kiss, instead opting to trail his lips up into the crook of Guillermo’s neck.

Nandor was knocking over more chairs as he stood. “Get your fucking hands off my familiar!” he roared.

Nadja, who had been holding the phone, pointed the camera squarely at herself now. She mostly looked disinterested, but Laszlo didn’t miss the shadow of disgust on her face. He decided that was a triumph. Somewhere off-camera **,** Nandor was ranting loudly and shifting furniture.

“Anyway, was there a reason for your call?” Laszlo asked arrogantly, basking in the glory of his upper-handedness **.** Eyes still glued to Nadja, he opened his mouth and gave Guillermo a tiny nip on the neck. Guillermo squeaked again. Nadja rolled her eyes…again. This time her disgust was apparent.

“If you really are to be married, then kiss him. On the mouth,” she said, cocking an eyebrow expectantly.

Laszlo and Guillermo seemed to gulp in unison. Nandor saved them by snatching the phone off of Nadja, who gasped in outrage at his intrusion. He began yelling something incomprehensible…was that  _ Farsi?... _ into the receiver. Guillermo visibly recoiled…and then must have felt Laszlo’s hardness against his ass because he quickly bucked forward with a little terrified yelp. He quickly slid his thumb across the red button and watched Nadja disappear, before turning the device off and dropping it on the bed. He huffed out a great big breath. Laszlo couldn’t see the boy’s face, but he saw enough flush circling his neck to assume he must be ripe as a tomato by now.

He was almost disappointed to see the call end. He wasn’t an energy vampire, but he did get a great deal of pleasure out of forcing his former best friend to take a swallow of his own bitter medicine. And being able to elicit such a response from Guillermo from such a simple touch was…well…even more pleasurable. In more ways than one.


	13. You Make Loving Fun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Guillermo experiences his first sexy times. Laszlo is there to help him (ie. laugh at him) along the way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like a broken record but THANK YOOOOU UV_Duv for putting up with my incessant shitposting in prose form and giving me the most amazing suggestions. And THANK YOOOOOU readers!! I hope you are enjoying this as much as I am enjoying writing it >:D

Guillermo couldn’t turn around. Laszlo’s lips had long since left his skin. His dick, which had sprung to attention the moment he’d felt Laszlo’s hardness against him, had long since returned to its dormant state, leaving an empty, yearning ache in his loins that threatened to revive his arousal should the vampire so much as  _ look _ at him. No…he couldn’t face him. His cheeks were on fire. His heart rate was making him dizzy. The phone lay discarded on the mattress before him. He tried to focus on the blank screen and slow his breathing. In through the nose, out through the mouth.

_ Breathe… _

__ __ _ Breathe… _

__ __ “Gizmo?” Laszlo muttered from behind him.

Guillermo’s cock twitched.  _ Shit _ .

“Gizmo, look at me.” The vampire’s voice held a fraction of poorly-disguised amusement, as if he knew  _ exactly _ what he was doing to the dumbfounded human. Guillermo shifted a little, torn between wanting to face him and wanting to sink below the bed and into the ground. A gentle hand landed on his hip and slid partway down his thigh, and suddenly Laszlo’s breath was on his neck, cold as his touch.

“I never did thank you for your help,” he rumbled in Guillermo’s ear.

Guillermo swallowed the nervous lump in his throat. “H-help?” he managed to peep.

“Agreeing to marry me and get back at that adulterous wife of mine,” Laszlo explained in that same weirdly seductive tone. Guillermo almost laughed. This wasn’t real. He was dreaming. That had to be it. For some reason, the delusional thought gave him a little confidence.

“Well I didn’t exactly  _ agree _ —”

Laszlo hushed him gently, ignoring his words. His hand travelled further down Guillermo’s thigh, and Guillermo could feel the unmistakable hardness against his backside again. He didn’t want to think about what his own cock was doing, though it was clearly responding to Laszlo’s intentions.

Laszlo.

This was  _ Laszlo! _

He squeezed his eyes shut, forcing out a long breath. This felt wrong. The arm propping him up was wobbly and he felt unsteady, desperately trying to keep as much space between them as possible without completely depriving himself of the vampire’s touch. Laszlo didn’t care for that space, though. He tugged Guillermo’s hip suddenly, inviting him closer, while at the same time pressing his groin flush against the human’s backside.

Somehow, through the haze of terror and pleasure, Guillermo found his voice. “Laszlo,” he choked, and then could say no more. He didn’t even know  _ what _ he wanted to say. Did he want him to stop? To kiss him? To throw him on his back and tear his clothes off? It was hard to think, to decide on what he really wanted, when his dick had taken control of half his brain.

Laszlo decided for him. The tantalizing breathing at the back of Guillermo’s neck ceased suddenly, and the vampire’s hand slid away. A moment later a rush of warm air tickled Guillermo’s back where Laszlo’s cool skin had been moments ago. The vampire had rolled onto his back, and Guillermo glanced longingly behind him in spite of himself. Laszlo was unlacing his trousers.

“What are you doing?” Guillermo gasped, his heart picking up again.

“Pruning the hedges. Writing a cheque.”

“…Huh?”

“What the fuck does it look like I’m doing?”

“Oh…” Guillermo’s eyes slid down to watch Laszlo’s hands work. He tried to swallow the dry lump in his throat, and the resulting click in his esophagus was embarrassingly audible.

“Ever played the clarinet?” Laszlo asked.

Guillermo tore his eyes away from Laszlo’s straining bulge in order to meet his eyes. The confusion must have been written all over his face, because suddenly the vampire was laughing. Then realization sunk in, and Guillermo’s stomach dropped. Of course Laszlo was not talking about wood instruments.

“ _ Oh no _ …” Had he just whispered that out loud?

“Didn’t think so,” Laszlo said, before stripping off his pants. His socks and shoes came off with them, leaving him in nothing but a partly-unbuttoned blouse and vintage boxer shorts. He lay back against the pillows and smirked. Guillermo’s stomach fluttered at the sight; there was no denying that the vampire looked dangerously inviting.

“As luck would have it, Gizmo, I make an  _ excellent _ instructor.” Laszlo slid his thumbs under the hem of his undershorts and tugged them down. Guillermo saw a patch of fuzzy black hair before his hand developed a mind of its own and shot out to stop him.

“Wait!” he shrieked in a wobbly voice.

Millions of years of human evolution, passed down from countless generations, dispersed into Guillermo’s DNA to allow him to develop complex motor skills early in life and hone and flex those skills throughout his childhood and into adulthood…so many years of reaching out and successfully grasping things…and yet this one moment, when he needed his motor skills and spatial awareness the most…his brain decided to forget how to function and he found himself missing Laszlo’s hand and grabbing his dick instead.

“Oh my g—sorry!” he gasped, flinching back. “I didn’t mean to…I’m not…” he trailed off upon seeing Laszlo’s face. The vampire watched him under hooded eyes, indifferent to the human’s plight to the point he looked almost bored. He grabbed the hem of his boxers again and yanked them down, and this time Guillermo could do nothing but sit back and watch, letting the hot blush take over his face. He willed his breathing to remain calm, though he couldn’t tear his eyes away from Laszlo’s exposed cock. For a vampire who had starred in pornos for the better part of a century, his size was surprisingly…average. And aside from a crisscross of scars detailing his shaft, there were no signs of leprosy. It certainly wasn’t green.

“You want to write a sonnet about it?” Laszlo asked as he kicked his underclothes off the bed and settled back on his elbows.

Guillermo shook his head, tearing his eyes away in embarrassment. “Huh?”

“You’re staring at it like you’ve never seen a tallywhacker before. You read enough of those erotic publications, I assumed you’d be more comfortable—”

“Oh!” Guillermo’s head was currently occupied in some alternative universe where he wasn’t dying of embarrassment, but his body seemed to know what to do. Gingerly he shuffled down the mattress and knelt over Laszlo’s legs. From somewhere far away, he saw his shaky hand reach down and take the vampire’s length, eliciting a strangled, closed-mouth moan from Laszlo. The noise startled Guillermo and he flung his hand away breathlessly, looking to Laszlo for some kind of answer. Laszlo’s hand came up to lazily cup Guillermo’s cheek, then slid further up, snaking through his hair before curling around the back of his head and pulling him gently towards his groin. His other hand reached for one of Guillermo’s and guided it back towards the base of his cock.

Guillermo’s nerves were on fire. He wanted to cry; not because he didn’t want this…he did want this, didn’t he? Yes. He was lonely and horny and he actually kind of  _ liked _ Laszlo, as much as he hated to admit it to himself. He wanted to feel that silky skin on his tongue, that heavy shaft; he wanted to pleasure him and taste him as he spent into his mouth, down his throat…

But Laszlo could be harsh. He could be cruel. If Guillermo did the wrong thing, would he be yelled at? Kicked out? Ignored for the rest of eternity? He couldn’t live with that.

“You’ll tell me?” he whispered, hazarding a glance at Laszlo’s face. Laszlo apparently hadn’t expected him to look up, because he had no time to school his face into something that wasn’t undisguised affection. There was a warmth in his eyes that rivalled Jackie’s whenever the regular human spoke about his volleyball girls. Guillermo’s heart leapt into his throat.

“Tell you what, boy?” Laszlo growled, feigning annoyance.

“If I do something wrong.”

Laszlo grunted his assent and squeezed the hand that was around his cock. “It’s not something you can really  _ get _ wrong. Unless you bite my dick off. And if you do  _ that _ , I will—” he stopped short and groaned as Guillermo ducked his head and took him into his mouth.

Guillermo closed his eyes, taking in the taste and smell of the vampire, while trying to ignore the languishing ache in his own groin. Laszlo’s scent was unfamiliar. It was not warm and homely like Nandor’s; not accentuated with exotic oils and memories of ancient Persia. No, Laszlo’s scent was reminiscent of old books and rose gardens and orchards, punctuated with the piquant aroma of salt and sea. And it was only now, as he licked a single, experimental stroke up Laszlo’s shaft, delighting at the quiet groan he evoked, that Guillermo realized he had next to no idea who the vampire had been in his past life.

He pushed the thought to the back of his mind for later contemplation and focused on his task.Slowly he began to pump, Laszlo’s hand still gripping his, sliding his fist up and down while licking and suckling the head of Laszlo’s cock with all the vigor he could muster. The hand in Guillermo’s hair tightened into a fist, and the sensation went right to his crotch. He groaned, feeling a tiny bloom of wetness in his underpants. Dazedly he remembered back to something he’d read a while ago, about breathing out through the nose in order to suppress the gag reflex. He tried this as he took more of Laszlo in, feeling the tickle of pubic hair against the tip of his nose.

“ _ Fuck _ ,” Laszlo growled, bucking involuntarily. “You say you’ve never done this before?”

Guillermo hummed his reply, which only resulted in more bucking. If his mouth wasn’t full, he’d be grinning like an idiot. He looked up at Laszlo’s face briefly, only to find the vampire looking back at him with that same unguarded affection as before. That look alone was doing things to Guillermo…things that he never in his wildest dreams thought possible from anyone except Nandor, had Nandor given him the chance.

Laszlo closed his eyes and craned his neck back, and the way his spine arched, pressing his cock further against the back of Guillermo’s throat and coating his tongue in salty precum, had Guillermo rubbing himself against the mattress in a fruitless attempt to alleviate some of the pain in his groin. Laszlo soon picked up the pace and Guillermo loosened his jaw a little, finally relaxing into his actions, allowing Laszlo to fuck into his throat. All the while the vampire squirmed and mumbled quiet praise, combing his fingers through Guillermo’s hair, clutching it every so often in encouragement. Guillermo had never felt so important; so  _ wanted _ . He lapped up Laszlo’s praise just as eagerly as he lapped up the fluid that beaded on the tip of the vampire’s cock.

He was in a trancelike state when suddenly Laszlo gripped a bunch of curls at the back of his head and wrenched him back, away from his throbbing length. Guillermo let out a gasp, then a pained groan, shaking the vampire off.

“What?” he huffed, embarrassed and somewhat annoyed.

“I was about to come,” Laszlo explained between short puffs. He was still gripping the back of Guillermo’s head. “I don’t want to drown you in my seed, boy.”

Guillermo let out a relieved chuckle, his confidence trickling back in. He placed a soft kiss on the underside of Laszlo’s cock, delighting in the way the warm shaft bounced against his nose…the fact that he held this kind of power over a vampire. Over  _ Laszlo _ , of all vampires. But it wasn’t just power that made him feel this way…there was something else, too. Something was happening between them; something that was only truly apparent when Guillermo looked into Laszlo’s eyes. But he didn’t want to explore that  _ something _ just yet.

“I think I can handle it,” he replied finally, before trailing his tongue up Laszlo’s shaft.

Laszlo grunted, bucked his hips, and gasped out, “There’ll be a  _ lot _ of it. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

That made Guillermo stop mid-lick. He closed his mouth, kissed the vampire’s silky skin again, and then looked up at him with what he hoped was smoldering seduction in his dark eyes. “Hmm. What does it taste like?”

“Huh? Vampire semen?” Laszlo asked distractedly, lost in that dark, seductive gaze.

“Mhmm.”

“I don’t  _ know _ .” He pinched the bridge of his nose and exhaled, apparently suffering greatly from the absence of moist lips around his cock. “I suppose a bit like…blood…without the red…”

Guillermo grinned at the inane description and Laszlo’s impatience. “I’m sure I can live with that,” he teased, and went back to sucking. Laszlo relaxed back against the pillows with a relieved sigh, which made Guillermo’s stomach do silly little flips.

The more he sucked and licked and brought Laszlo closer to the edge, the more his mind devolved into something basic and primal; stripping him of all modesty and self-awareness, until he could do nothing but buck against the mattress and moan around Laszlo’s dick, spittle and precum trickling from the corners of his mouth, eyes squeezed shut in a silent plea to the universe to relieve him of his sexual anguish.

Several things happened at once, all of a sudden. Laszlo let out a protracted “ _ fuck _ ” as he thrust once more against the back of Guillermo’s throat. Warm liquid spurted unexpectedly over the back of his tongue, accompanied by a brackish, unfamiliar taste, and it gushed down Guillermo’s throat and he gagged. He spat Laszlo’s cock out, sputtering and coughing everywhere while streamers of hot semen hit him in the face, splattering into his eyes and up his nose. He was vaguely aware of Laszlo saying something, then laughing, then rattling off half-hearted insults.

His vision was a field of gloopy white and he quickly yanked off his glasses in order to clean them with his shirt, whimpering and shuffling back in the process. Then he fell off the bed.

Laszlo only laughed louder.

*****

“Ahhh!” Guillermo cried, swiping at his face with the back of his hands. “It’s in my eyes!”

“Hold still,” Laszlo scolded tediously, grabbing the human by the wrists and yanking his hands away. He’d directed a blind, half-sobbing Guillermo into the bathroom and turned on the shower. Now he soaked a washcloth and wrung it out, before pushing it into the boy’s hands. “Here,” he said. “I  _ did _ warn you there’d be a lot.”

Guillermo took it and began to wipe at his closed eyes, his mouth turned down in a miserable frown. Laszlo tried not to focus too much on the hilarity of the situation, because the boy was practically crying and all, but seeing his face screwed up like that and covered in pennants of vampire semen  _ was _ an amusing sight. As Guillermo washed his face, Laszlo decided to turn his attention to the man’s boxers. But as soon as he tugged on them, Guillermo gasped and stumbled back blindly. Laszlo caught him before he slipped.

“Hold  _ still _ ,” he repeated, and tugged Guillermo back by the hem.

“W-what are you—”

“Getting you ready for a wash,” Laszlo interrupted curtly. “You’re covered in…well…”

Guillermo let out a little sob as Laszlo yanked the boy’s underwear to his ankles.

“I-I can take it from here,” Guillermo said quickly, scrunching up the washcloth and tossing it into the sink. His eyes were red and puffy, and Laszlo wasn’t sure if the tears that rimmed them were caused by humiliation, or the sting of his misdirected seed. He suddenly felt sorry for the boy, as much as it filled him with a cringey sort of disgust. This was all new to Guillermo; not only the sex part but the touch part, too. It was clear by his reaction that the boy had never experienced any type of intimacy or attention like this, or if he had, it had been very short-lived and not very memorable. He was a sensitive, naïve human that read love stories and watched romantic comedies and thought that sex should be as perfect as the petals of a red rose and as sexy as its thorns. Making love could be like that, of course, but it could also be messy and awkward; full of tousled hair and aching thighs and laughter. Sometimes it was downright silly.

“No, you can’t,” Laszlo said decidedly, and went to work undoing the remaining buttons on his own partly-open blouse – the only thing he was still wearing. Guillermo’s eyes widened, immediately moving to the trail of thick dark hair that made a stripe down the center of Laszlo’s tummy. When they inevitably reached Laszlo’s half-hard cock, Guillermo quickly averted them. Laszlo raised an eyebrow, smirking.

“Like what you see, boy?”

Guillermo quietly cleared his throat. “I can’t see much without my glasses, to be honest.” The blush that graced his neck and face betrayed his words, though. He could see well enough. He was stark naked, and he hurriedly stepped into the shower in order to hide. Laszlo grabbed the washcloth out of the basin and followed him in, much to Guillermo’s dismay.

The shower cubicle was cramped but clean and well-lit. The water that gushed from the showerhead was tantalizingly hot, steaming the room and warming Laszlo’s cold skin. He involuntarily shivered at the sensation, before noticing Guillermo’s arms were also covered in goosebumps, though presumably for different reasons. The human stood close to the water, his back facing Laszlo, his muscles taut and his spine rigid as he allowed the water to wash away the mess on his chest and belly. Again, Laszlo felt weirdly sympathetic for the awkward boy. He reached around to rinse the washcloth under the water, then squeezed some of Guillermo’s cheap bodywash onto it. He brought the cloth up to the human’s broad back and began to scrub.

Guillermo somehow managed to tense even more.

“Easy,” Laszlo said placatingly, trying to keep the irritation from his voice. “Loosen up.” He scrubbed his way down Guillermo’s back, noting the various freckles and little moles that dotted his otherwise flawless skin. His back was already clean, but he figured it was the safest place to start. Guillermo needed a little time to adjust to these things, it seemed. If Laszlo went straight for his dick, the boy would probably slip over in his surprise and crack his soft human skull open.

After a moment, he hazarded sliding the washcloth around to Guillermo’s belly. To his surprise, he was rewarded with the human leaning back and resting his head against his collarbone. Laszlo swallowed the lump of uncertainty in his throat and pressed himself flush against Guillermo’s back, encircling him with his free arm and resting his chin in the crook of his neck. His opposite hand guided the washcloth blindly down to the patch of fine hair at the base of Guillermo’s cock, and Laszlo’s own cock twitched at finding him hard. Another chill passed between them, but Guillermo seemed to relax even more, his heart slowing to a more reasonable rhythm. He let out a little sigh, barely audible under the stream of the shower.

Laszlo made circling motions with the cloth, lathering Guillermo’s pubic hair and secretly delighting in the way the boy tensed and then sagged against him. He kept the pace slow, soothing, safe. Once he was sure Guillermo was relaxed enough, Laszlo slid the sudsy washcloth over his little mound of pubic hair and along the impressive length of his cock. Guillermo let out a strangled whimper, going tense again. Laszlo touched his lips to the crook of the boy’s neck and sighed, closing his eyes as he slowly began to pump.

This was…nice.

Laszlo balked for a moment, eyes snapping open. This wasn’t  _ supposed _ to be nice. This was simply him returning a favor. The growl that escaped his throat was one of frustration, but Guillermo seemed to think it meant something else, because he bucked his hips and pressed the back of his head further into Laszlo’s collarbone. He choked back every moan; his movements jerky and tense. Laszlo figured he was trying to remain inconspicuous. As though afraid that if Laszlo noticed him, he’d realize who he was pleasuring and stop.

He nipped Guillermo’s neck, suddenly interested in goading a noise out of him. He was rewarded with a pathetic peep.

“Make some  _ noise _ , lad,” he growled. Nettled, he threw down the washcloth and grabbed Guillermo’s cock in a tight fist. The boy let out a moan that could have almost been mistaken for pain, if it weren’t for the way his body sagged against Laszlo’s, or the way his hand reached back to clutch at the flesh of the vampire’s hairy thigh.

Laszlo had pleasured many men during his long, illustrious, and _very_ sexy life. He knew how to hold them; how to stroke and squeeze and tease; how to push them closer and closer to the edge and then ease them back until they were squirming, begging messes. In the eighteenth century, it was rumored that he had managed to render Lord Harrison Caldwell completely mad after delivering what was arguably the most adept act of fellatio of the century. He liked to take his time in the bedroom…or, in this case, the washroom. Yet tonight he felt a sense of urgency; an unsettling feeling in his stomach.

This was  _ Gizmo  _ he was wrapped around. A human familiar – and not a very good one, at that. Nandor’s hapless little dumpling. The boy who had fallen in love with the very first vampire he’d ever set eyes on and who had then spent twelve years chasing hopelessly after said vampire, dodging every disappointing blow that the vampire threw his way. The boy who, in his desperation, could now be infatuated with  _ him _ , for all Laszlo knew.

Was it wrong to be doing this? Laszlo stopped suddenly, taken aback by the thought. Since when did he care about what was right or wrong? He was immortal; a creature of the night who fed on the blood of humans and left their bodies for the crows. Morals were for humans, not vampires.

“Laszlo,” Guillermo breathed out in a half-whine. His hand left Laszlo’s thigh and grabbed the hand around his cock, squeezing it in a not-so-subtle plea. Laszlo shook the sudden dilemma from his head and began to stroke Guillermo again, alternating between squeezing with his fingers and running his palm over the length. He’d never given much thought to the size of Guillermo’s cock, but he was surprised (and just a tad impressed) by what he felt. Guillermo wasn’t nearly as long as Nandor – who could probably win some kind of obscene award – but he was thick and heavy and  _ warm _ .

It was this living, human warmth that made Laszlo stifle a groan and bite down on Guillermo’s shoulder, gently, so as to not pierce his delicate skin. The ensuing gasp from Guillermo threatened to undo him then and there, and he closed his eyes, breathing in the human’s virginal scent while two opposing forces fought inside his head.

He wanted Guillermo.

_ No, he didn’t. _

He wanted him in more ways than just sex.

_ No, he was just horny and touch-deprived. _

This would pass. These feelings would pass.

Guillermo’s endearing little mewls brought Laszlo back to himself. “N… _ N _ …”

“Nandor,” Laszlo supplied in his ear. “Are you imagining I’m Nandor?”

“Shit,” Guillermo panted. “Not with that accent.”

Laszlo stifled a laugh, the battle in his head promptly dissipating. “I’ll be quiet, then.”

Guillermo whimpered what was probably his thanks and squirmed against him. His hand snaked up to wrap behind Laszlo’s head and press his nose closer against his neck.

Laszlo’s own hand was moving of its own accord, pumping faster than what would be humanly possible at this angle, and for a moment he wondered if it was too much for the boy. As if reading his mind, Guillermo twisted his neck and looked up at him under hooded eyes. His pulsing lifeblood was a cacophony in Laszlo’s ears.

“I’m going to come,” he panted. “Can I kiss you?”

“No,” Laszlo said, more curtly than he’d intended.

Guillermo turned away with a sad, desire-filled whimper that touched Laszlo’s core. It occurred to him later that the boy had probably misunderstood the reason behind his refusal, but in truth Laszlo wasn’t a stranger to tasting himself on other people’s lips. He’d refused because he knew how much weight a single kiss could hold when it came to humans and their slaphappy tendencies to fall in love. He knew how much weight a single kiss could hold against  _ him _ . Nadja knew this; she’d implied as much over the phone when she’d demanded they kiss.

Guillermo stiffened suddenly, bringing Laszlo back to earth again. The human arched his back and drew out a long groan. Desperately he clutched a fistful of Laszlo’s hair, his cock pulsating, and a second later he was painting the tiled wall with come. His groan petered out into short, gasping sobs as his orgasm quickly faded. Eventually he peeled himself away from Laszlo and leaned against the wall, his shoulders and legs visibly shaking.

Laszlo stepped out of the shower silently, trying to ignore the pull in his chest that would take him back to Guillermo. He felt overwhelmed and emotional and more than a little tipsy on alcohol-tainted blood. But the reluctance and yearning that tugged at him had little to do with the human behind the shower curtain.

His thoughts were filled with Nadja.

*****

Guillermo couldn’t bring himself to leave the bathroom. He stayed under the stream of water until it felt like pinpricks of ice against his cooling skin. He begrudgingly picked up the washcloth and cleaned the wall, then wrung it out and flung it out the shower curtain and onto the floor next to the sink. He wasn’t even sure where it had come from, but he hoped that Laszlo had had the decency to find a clean one. He didn’t fancy the idea of having washed his face with the same cloth some dead old guy had used to scrub his balls.

Reluctantly he dried himself, tried to wrap a towel around his waist, found it was too small, and pulled on his pajama pants instead. He’d only recently changed, but the evidence of their little rendezvous was painted all over them. He’d have to find another pair. And strip his sheets. And probably find a clean blanket and pillow cases; maybe even a sponge for the walls.

Eventually he resigned himself to his fate, putting on his glasses and heading out the door with a forlorn sigh. He approached the couch-bed from the back, so much of the view was blocked, but he saw enough of the mattresses’ corner to see that the bed had, surprisingly, been stripped and re-made already. It squeaked with the weight of another person, and Guillermo’s heart leapt into his throat.

“Laszlo?” he said in a shaky voice. The way the vampire had fled the bathroom had him more nervous than he’d been all night. But knowing he was still here, that he hadn’t fled the room, settled the butterflies somewhat. He rounded the couch with sudden urgency. “Laszlo I’m sorry if I did something wrong, I—what the  _ fuck _ , Colin?”

“Laz-man has left the building,” Colin Robinson said distractedly. He was lounging back on fresh sheets, scrolling through Guillermo’s phone. “You know you really have a way with words. This friend fiction is just top notch. Keeps me guessing, I’ll tell you that. Who knew you’d go from pining over Nandor to chasing Laszlo in such a short amount of time?”

“What are you doing in my  _ bed _ ?” Guillermo shrieked.

Colin looked up at him, nonplussed. “Reading?”

“W-was it you who…?” Guillermo gestured shyly to the bed.

“Oh, no, Laszlo was changing the sheets just as I walked in. Dude spotted me and couldn’t get away quick enough. Left some buttons behind, heh.” Colin shuffled over on his butt, then stretched his legs out with a contented sigh. It was an invitation for Guillermo to join him. Guillermo, feeling all kinds of dejected, plopped down next to him.

"’Laszlo stroked my hair as he slid in and out of me with his cold, throbbing cock. His breath was cold on my neck as he groaned, "Guillermo", which was my name…’” Colin read in his monotonous voice, his eyes on the phone’s screen and on Guillermo’s disgraceful attempts at writing smut.

“Please don’t,” Guillermo mumbled.

Colin put the phone down and looked at him. “That bad, huh?”

“You think I’m going to tell  _ you _ , of all people?”

“Okay. Understandable.” Colin feigned slight upset. “At least tell me this one thing: did you cry? I need to know for betting purposes.”

Guillermo rolled his head, and his eyes, toward Colin. “For  _ betting _ purposes?”

“Well, see, Amy and I made a bet—”

“—Of course you did—”

“—And I bet that you would cry when Laszlo took your virginity. Amy said you were, and I’m quoting here, ‘a grown man and were stronger than that.’”

Guillermo glared daggers at him, his lips set in a thin, firm line. Then his face relaxed and he averted his gaze. “You both lost the bet. I’m still a virgin. And probably will be for a long while yet.”

“Dang,” Colin hissed. Then, from the corner of his eye, Guillermo saw the energy vampire grin and mumble, “Amy’s not. As of about…two hours ago.”

Guillermo gaped at him. “You really…what?  _ You _ , Colin? Of all people?”

Colin put his hands up in defense. “Hey, I may be an energy vampire, but I know how to seduce a lady.” He ignored Guillermo’s snort and added, “Want to hear all about it?”

“No. I really don’t.”

“Great!” Colin said, rubbing his hands together.

Guillermo craned his neck back, closed his eyes, and braced himself for the cringe.


	14. Waiting For a Girl Like You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An entire chapter dedicated to Colin having sex. Enjoy!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> UV_Duv went ABOVE AND BEYOND in her beta-ing to provide this chapter with delicious, cringy, weird Colinisms. Anything remotely witty on Colin's part was probably suggested by her. The idea for the last line is courtesy of singing_to_shipwreck. I just wrote all the boring bits lol :'D Thank you both!! 
> 
> If you manage to get through this chapter, give yourself a pat on the back. Please excuse any typos/mistakes if I read through it again my eyes will combust.

Colin’s thoughts and desires were conflicted. As were his plans for a date. On the one hand, restaurants were a  _ delicious _ feeding ground: underpaid waiters, nervous date-goers, tired parents with shrieking children trying to redeem a terrible anniversary.  _ Scrumptious. _ . On the other hand, Amy was an anxious little kitten, and her last date at a restaurant had apparently not gone so well. There was always the cinema. It too could be an ample feeding ground, but usually in order to scrounge up a decent meal, Colin would need to be downright annoying: eating popcorn loudly, clearing his throat every two seconds, laughing during a sad scene, pretending to get a call during the cliffhanger. He didn’t want to embarrass Amy,  _ or _ annoy her and scare her away. He…well…he  _ liked _ Amy. He liked her very much. He wanted there to be more dates in the future. It was such a foreign feeling, and what was even more confusing was that he was starting to think that maybe he could try to forego feeding on people tonight. For just one date. It would be hard; he wasn’t sure he’d ever even attempted it before. But it was worth it, for her. Besides, he could always feed after. The awkward sexual tension between Gizmo and Laz-man meant that nourishment sprang eternal.

Heh, those two. Colin smiled to himself as he adjusted his tie in the mirror. Jackie Daytona and Mickey Greenburg were down at the bar, presumably serving human drinks while flitting nervous looks at one another. Laszlo probably trying to sort through his perpetually horny thoughts to figure out exactly what it was he was feeling for the boy, while Guillermo, the poor heartbroken bast –

\-----

Guillermo cleared his throat and glared at Colin.. “I thought this was about you and Amy.”

“I’m setting the scene,” Colin replied with a grin, before continuing his story.

\-----

He’d decided to take her on a twilight picnic by the Monongahela River. There’d be less people and less opportunities to feed, but the quietude might help his lady’s anxiety. 

He could practically see Amy’s nervous, excited aura through the wall as he approached her apartment. The door opened immediately after he pressed the bell. There she was, the beautiful redhead in a scarlet cardigan and black skinny jeans, beaming up at him with pearly white teeth. Like an adorable sexy ladybug with good dental insurance. Her smile reached the deep green of her eyes and made them sparkle. Colin’s heart was in his throat. The smile that spread over his lips felt natural despite the unnatural restiveness that gnawed at his guts and made him feel jittery.

“Hey!” she said excitedly, her voice a little shaky.

“Hey yourself. You look…good.”

Amy ducked her head with a blush. Colin decided to spare her the awkwardness of coming up with a response.

“Ready to skedaddle?” he asked.

She looked up at him again with an eager nod. “Yeah!”

Google Maps had found Colin a nice little spot near an old monument by the river. The drive was filled with her nervous chatter, which Colin was growing to love more and more with every passing second.

“If I had all the time in the world, I would try to learn every language there is,” she gushed as they neared the monument. “I  _ really _ want to learn Latin, but also French. And all those obscure, forgotten languages, too! It’s so sad that so many languages are dying out, don’t you think?”

“Oh, you should talk to Nandor about that,” Colin said. “Poor guy’s entire country doesn’t exist anymore.”

Amy gasped. “Oh, no. I would love to chat with him about it one day. Hear his story. A warrior from the  _ Ottoman Empire _ ?”

Colin couldn’t help but grin at her. “Eh, you might be disappointed. He’s not the most gifted storyteller.”

He’d let Amy in on the fact that his housemates (minus Guillermo) were vampires. For such a nervous creature, she took it in her stride and had since asked countless questions about the differences between vampiric lore and real-life vampires. Colin had so far kept his mouth shut about psychic vampires and that he happened to be one. Partly because he was worried about losing whatever this was that they currently had, and partly because, so far, he hadn’t found anywhere in their conversations to inject that little bit of information.

They watched the sunset together, or as much as they could over the line of trees; Amy munching away on a banana, huddled close to Colin’s side. Colin managed a few bites of a Subway sandwich before the human food settled queasily in his stomach. Eating human food was a nuisance but doable in a pinch. 

\-----

“You don’t like eating food?” Guillermo asked, seemingly genuinely surprised.

“Well, no, not really. Then I have to do all the work of digesting and pooping it out. It’s one thing to feed in a public bathroom but another thing altogether to actually use it myself.”

Guillermo’s lip curled in disgust and Colin took his silence as an opportunity to continue.

\-----

He tried to shield himself from Amy’s enticing energy, intent on seeing the night through without his date passing out. The sky slowly turned dusky, stars appearing above thin gashes of dark clouds. Amy sighed, resting her head against Colin’s shoulder, startling the energy vampire.

Amy looked up at him with concern on her face. “Is this okay?”

“Yes,” Colin said, tamping down the butterflies in his stomach. “This is perfect.” He swallowed the unfamiliar lump in his throat and without thinking, closed the short distance between them and brushed his lips against hers. Amy let out a tiny whimper, and he felt a shudder pass through her body. He brought a hand up to cup her cheek as he broke the chaste kiss. Her irises were cloudy, her lips curled in a dreamy smile, and for a moment Colin was worried he’d inadvertently drained her. But then her eyes cleared and sharpened into a new emotion; something that Colin wasn’t very familiar with but recognized all the same: desire.

\-----

“You are cornier than any trashy vampire romance I’ve ever read, and that’s easily hundreds.”

“Hush. It’s still a better love story than Twilight.”

\-----

She returned his kiss, only it wasn’t a simple brushing of lips this time. This time she grabbed his jaw and pressed her mouth firmly against his, closing her eyes even as Colin continued to stare in a mix of awe and surprise. When he thought she was going to pull away, he opened his mouth a little in reflex, prompting her to dart her tongue inside and run it along his. It reminded him of the mating habits of leopard slugs--in a word, incredibly sensual, but surprisingly intense. Colin stiffened and Amy let out an audible  _ eep _ before pulling back. She put a hand over her mouth.

“I’m  _ so _ sorry,” she gasped. “I don’t know what came over me. I…”

Colin could scarcely hide his smile. “It’s fine,” he said, trying to infuse as much sincerity into his flat voice as possible. “It was…err…it was nice.” He realized his hand was still on her cheek. For a second he considered flinging it back. Instead, he opted to run his thumb down her jaw and secretly delight in the shiver it drew from her.

“Really?” Amy breathed, her eyes clouding over again. “Can…can we…”

“Yes.” Colin didn’t need her to finish. He closed the gap between them again and kissed her deeply, their tongues grazing and their teeth clashing awkwardly as they tried to convey their feelings through the simple act. Before Colin knew it, Amy was on her back, stiff as a board but kissing him eagerly as he settled above her, the sunset reflected in her gorgeous moss colored eyes.

\-----

“Moss?”

“Dark green.”

“No, I know that, but I don’t exactly think of lichen when I’m making out with someone…”

“Your loss, G-man.”

\----

He tried to keep his lower half a respectable distance away, but she must have sensed his arousal because when they came up for air, she gasped his name and said, “I’m…I’m a virgin.”

\-----

Guillermo stared at him, unimpressed. “Are you fucking serious?”

“Hey. Shush.” Colin Robinson put up a finger to Guillermo’s lips. He rolled his eyes and sighed but stopped talking.

\-----

“Really?” Colin asked, surprised. He shuffled awkwardly onto his side, almost knocking over a half-empty glass of orange juice in the process. Amy’s cheeks flushed scarlet and Colin stumbled for words. “Uh, I didn’t mean…I mean, you’re so beautiful I thought…” he trailed off uselessly.

“Yeah,” she said quietly. “I’ve just never had much luck with dating. Never anything serious. People scare me a little, y’know? I’ve kind of been waiting around for the right guy. I know it’s cliché.” She gave a soft, uncertain giggle.

“No, it’s understandable,” Colin said, adjusting his glasses. It took every ounce of his willpower to not start up a lecture about sexual crime rates. He looked around him instead, unsure of what to say. “Um…this isn’t the best place to, anyway. We don’t have to…”

“Will you take me home?” Amy asked quickly, wriggling away from him.

Colin’s stomach dropped. Had he said something wrong? Did she think he wasn’t interested in her in that way? Because he certainly  _ was _ , and he had the proof of that between his legs at this very moment. But he wasn’t Laszlo, or ninety percent of the entire vampire population for that matter. He knew how to take things slow. In fact, most of his everyday life was spent taking things slow, because people hated a slow person.

“Sure,” he said. He gestured for Amy to stand and she took his hand.. After packing up the remains of the picnic together, they silently walked back to the car. 

Something had changed between them and it was filling Colin with dread. It’d be a delicious meal if it were literally anyone else. His thoughts returned to the hat…had its magic finally worn off? Did Amy see him now in a different light? Did she see the… truth? The drive back to her apartment was quiet most of the way. Amy barely opened her mouth to speak, giving only cursory answers whenever Colin tried to initiate conversation. At one point he noticed she was  _ trembling _ .

What had he done? Had he been too forward with her? From what he knew about typical modern dating habits, it may have been more appropriate to wait until the second or third date, and given Amy’s temperament, maybe the fifth or sixth--

“Colin?” she said quietly, about a block from her home.

“Yes?” Colin tried to keep the disappointment from his voice.

“I…I really like you,” Amy mumbled, ducking her head to look at her fidgeting hands. “Like,  _ really _ like you. I’ve never felt this way about anyone, and I’m sorry if I come across distant or…or cold…but this is all new to me and I don’t know what to do or how to act.”

Colin breathed out a sigh of relief. Gingerly, he reached over and placed a hand on her forearm. “I like you too, Amy,” he said with a small smile. “Really. And as difficult as it is to believe, I haven’t had much experience or luck in the dating department either. But, I think we can work it out together. If you want to, that is.”

She giggled and smiled back at him; her eyes shiny with unshed tears.

They kissed at her doorstep. Colin tried to keep it chaste, but Amy took it further again, and he wasn’t going to complain about the way she slinked up against him, or the little noises of encouragement she made.

She pulled back and averted her gaze, suddenly interested in Colin’s dijon yellow tie. He thought it paired nicely with his butter colored sweater vest. The way she bit her bottom lip in contemplation was almost enough to unravel him right there and then. When she met his eyes once more, they were dark with desire.

“W-would you like to come inside?” she asked.

Colin’s heart skipped a beat, especially interpreting her question literally, but his brain was faster and saw more sense. “Amy,” he said carefully, scratching his head in feigned abashedness, “if you’re only offering in order to please me…”

“No!” Amy said quickly. “I want this. I decided in the car. If…if you want to.” She turned away, busying herself with unlocking the door. It seemed to give her more confidence, though she was still blushing furiously. Her aura was the most delicious shade of deep pink, bordering on red. “I’m twenty-nine, Colin. I want to know what it’s like. I’m tired of being a virgin and I trust you; I really do. But I know we just met and I don’t want to pressure you and—” she was silenced by two firm hands on her waist. Colin, unthinking, pressed himself against her back and nuzzled her neck. Amy let out a little surprised noise. The door creaked open and they all but stumbled inside.

He knew his way to her bedroom from their study night, so he led her in that direction, still clutching her hips and kissing every inch of neck he could get to. He couldn’t help himself; she was adorably ticklish, and the giggles that rang out through the quiet, dark apartment were delectable. He felt her emotions as though they were his own: excitement, lust, apprehension, uncertainty, affection, trust. It was positively intoxicating.

She shut her bedroom door behind them and switched on her desk lamp. The room was immediately lit in a dull, golden glow that unexpectedly gave the illusion of candlelight. It was certainly more romantic than fluorescent. She came back to him straight away, as if missing his touch already, and flung her arms around his neck. They kissed for what felt like ages, standing in the middle of the room, Amy all but melting against him. Eventually Colin’s hands began to wander, running down her waist and over her backside, her curves lighting fireworks in his head and groin. Amy’s own hands followed suit, drifting over his shoulders and down to his chest where they rested indecisively. She pulled away, looking up at him under thick auburn eyelashes, her juniper green eyes smoldering. Colin noticed her lips were blushing red and plump from all the kissing. He felt himself overtaken with desire and want, deciding in that moment that he was in love.

\-----

“Lust.” Guillermo stated.

“It was love,” Colin Robinson countered.

“You met this woman two days ago.”

“And? I’m in love with her. Are you forgetting that you fell in love with Nandor in about five minutes? Plus or minus thirty seconds. ”

That shut Guillermo up.

\-----

He undressed her slowly, peppering each new exposure of skin with light kisses. She needed help with his tie, her hands shaking to the point she could hardly use them. When they were down to their underwear, he asked her if she was sure about this. She said yes. Enthusiastic consent granted, Colin kissed her and guided her onto the neatly-made bed. She lay back against pink and green pillows, dressed in nothing but a lacy white bra and matching panties. Her autumn locks fanned out beneath her, accentuating her pale skin and deep red lips. She looked up at Colin under hooded eyes, and Colin took a moment to marvel at her.

Eventually her cheeks grew hot and she giggled at his staring. “What?” she prodded.

“Nothing,” Colin said, though his voice was strained with want. “You’re just... very nice to look at.”

Amy, feeling a rush of courage, slipped her thumbs beneath the hem of Colin’s sensible greige khakis before unzipping them. Her hand brushed his hardness and Colin had to bite his lip to stifle a groan. She looked down at his underwear and snorted.

“Batman briefs?” she teased. “You’re such a dork.”

“Hey, if I’d known we were going to do this tonight, I would have worn my Superman ones.”

Amy burst out laughing at that, making Colin grin automatically. Her energy was a shimmering gradient of pink and blue. Her trembling had ceased. She slid his underwear down past his thighs, and kept her eyes on his as he kicked them off the rest of the way. Every so often she’d glance down to his sparsely-haired chest and back up again. Colin could see the hesitation in her eyes.

“You can look,” he said, briefly gliding a thumb down her chin. “You don’t have to be shy.”

She smiled at him with unguarded affection, flushed and panting from laughter and want. She looked down at his cock with poorly-disguised curiosity, then bit her bottom lip and straddled him. Colin closed his eyes and basked in the press of her breasts against his skin as she reached over and opened the drawer of her bedside table and rummaged around in it, producing a foil packet and little bottle of lube.

“Uh, good thinking,” Colin said, his voice strained as he bit back the terrible urge to segue into the importance of safe sex, the rise of antibiotic-resistant STI’s, and the somatic and monetary costs of childrearing.

\-----

“Wait--can you… you can have kids…?” Guillermo asked with a look of undisguised horror.

“Sure can, daddy-o. Well, I’d be the daddy, but you get it. The draining potential of children is, frankly, unparalleled. And for female energy vampires, the joys afforded by complaining about pregnancy in grievous detail.”

“Ugh.”

“Anyhoo, things were just getting good here…”

\-----

Amy was bright red as she placed the condom and lube beside the pillow, still straddling him. “I thought that maybe they might come in handy at…at some point,” she said shyly. She reached down and lifted Colin’s glasses off his face. Colin blinked.

“Can you see much without them?” she asked.

“Sure,” Colin said. “Just a little blurry.” It was a lie, really. He could see perfectly fine. If Amy were to put the glasses on herself, she’d realize they were just flat glass. She didn’t put them on, though, much to Colin’s relief. She placed them on the nightstand, before clutching Colin’s cheeks and kissing him again. Her panties were thin; he could feel the wetness pooling in the fabric as she began to slowly rub herself against his shaft. She broke their kiss with a little gasp, her brow knotted in what could have been yearning or apprehension, or both. From the mixed pink and yellow hues of her energy, it was definitely both.

Her hand found Colin’s and she guided it to her left breast, all the while her eyes glued to his, as if waiting for a reaction. Colin tore his eyes away from her beautiful face to look down at the breast he cupped; firm and plump in his grasp. Then his eyes slid to the other, and even in the shadows of the dim light, behind the lacey fabric of her bra, he realized there was something not quite right.

He shifted into a sitting position and went to work unclasping her bra. She put her arms around his neck and kissed him tentatively. Colin felt a chill run down his spine. It was not unpleasant. With a little tricky maneuvering, her bra came undone and she sat back and hugged herself before it could come sliding off.

“Hey,” Colin admonished lightly, “I let  _ you _ look.”

Amy tried to smile, but her lips wavered and she swallowed hard. She tossed the bra aside, blushing and quickly covering herself with slender arms. It was a pointless action; Colin could see her well enough. He leaned his back against the headboard and absorbed the sight in front of him while committing to memory the shy, sad twitch of Amy’s lips; the way she cautiously dropped her arms and exposed one plump little breast dusted in ginger freckles. On the right side of her chest was a long, circular scar arcing up her rib cage. It was pink and raised, but old.

Colin had to tear his eyes away to look up at Amy’s face. Her aura was shimmering dusky purple – a sad but pretty color, he noted – and there were tears in her eyes.

“Um…” she said, her voice breaking. “Cancer. Five years ago. But I’m in remission now!” Colin bit back rattling off how incredibly rare breast cancer cases in women under the age of 30 were. She gave a shrug and a little smile, but then the tears began to fall. “I’m sorry I didn’t mean to trick you I wear the push-up bras with an insert because it…it makes me feel more  _ normal _ and I know guys hate it when—”

“Amy,” Colin said.

“—when I tell them that parts of me are missing, especially the parts they like  _ most _ , and they think I’m going to like suddenly  _ die _ on them or some—”

“Amy,” Colin repeated, firmly this time. He gently grasped her upper arms so that she’d look at him. Tears were making a mess of her mascara, her hair was tousled, her cheeks mottled pink; she was so beautiful. If only he could find the right words to convey that. But he was an energy vampire; hell, he usually never made it this far into a relationship without accidentally sending someone into a coma or scaring them away. He cleared his throat. “Amy, you’re the most delightfully normal woman I have ever met. I mean, that’s not to say you’re boring. And I don’t know many women all that well. I mean, I mostly just have Nadja to go off and she’s…well…you’ll meet her one day.”

Amy’s face lit up at that. Colin was a little confused at first; he thought he’d done a pretty good job of butchering the compliment, and was almost expecting her to start bawling. But then he realized the hidden promise he’d just given her.  _ One day _ . He wasn’t going to leave her. He’d have to be a complete idiot to even humour the idea (Nandor suddenly sprung to mind).

Amy bent down and kissed him, and something about the way her hard little nipple grazed his chest had him letting out a tiny groan and involuntarily bucking his hips. He said her name around their kiss and she sat up again expectantly.

“I want to talk about this,” he said, gliding his thumb ever-so-lightly over her scar for emphasis. “Not tonight, but one day. Whenever you’re ready. I’d like to know what happened, if you’d tell me. I want to…I want to know everything about you. About what you study and what you like to do. Until I drive my housemates insane with all the trivia.”

Amy recognized his words for the quip they were and she giggled as tears spilled over onto her cheeks. “Just don’t tell them about  _ this _ ,” she teased, bucking against his hips. 

\-----

“You’re telling literally all of it to me now.”

“Well, we already know you’re good at keeping secrets, aren’t ya?” Colin Robinson needled. 

\-----

His cock had softened during their conversation, but now it sprung back to life. 

\-----

“Oh, I was really worried for a moment there.”

“This will end faster if you stop interrupting me.”

“You realize that this entire time I’ve just been imagining Nandor instead of you, right?”

“Whatever tickles your pickle, G-man. Well, not Nandor, but you get the sentiment.”

Guillermo groaned.

\-----

He lay back in the pillows with a contented sigh while Amy leaned over him to grab the condom and lube. He took the opportunity to tug her panties down.

Everything she did was a mix of sweet and sexy and silly. She laughed while she tried to roll the condom on, and then laughed again when the sensation of her slippery hand applying lube made Colin hiss. She stroked him for a little while, kissing his neck and chest while building up the courage to straddle him again. Colin pulled her into a better sitting position and she rubbed herself along his shaft until the head of his cock found her opening. She gave a little gasp around their kiss.

“If you find it hurts…”

“Colin, I’m a twenty-nine-year-old virgin,” Amy said with mixed sheepishness and amusement. “I’ve used toys.”

\-----

This time Colin interrupted himself to say, “You might find that particular detail relatable,” to a deliciously incredulous Guillermo before continuing.

\-----

“Oh,” Colin said, a little relieved. “I think you’ll find the real deal is a lot better.”

Still, he could tell by the way her brow furrowed and the indents her teeth left in her bottom lip that she was in pain. She was nervous, perhaps even a little bit frightened; Colin wasn’t huge by any means, and the real thing was far warmer and more pliable than a silicon dildo (he knew this…from experimenting), but for Amy this was, emotionally, a big deal. It was no wonder she felt tense. Slowly she slid up and down on him, each time taking him a little more. The sensation was lusciously provocative. Amy had no idea what she was doing to him; her little pants and whimpers; her tightness squeezing the life from him. Colin wrapped an arm around her back and pulled her close to him, catching her breast in his mouth and gently suckling her hardened nipple. Amy let out a high-pitched gasp and suddenly he was inside her fully, encased to the hilt in delicious warmth. They found each other’s mouths again as Amy began to fuck him in truth, each thrust becoming easier the wetter she became. Colin’s hands explored her bare skin with the urgency of a dying man. His right hand continued to drift back to her scar, his thumb tracing it.

At one point she broke their kiss and frowned at him.

“Does it hurt?” he asked, quickly taking his thumb away.

“No, but you keep touching it,” she said, and the pouty way in which she set her lips affected Colin’s heart as much as it affected his cock.

“I like it,” Colin said as earnestly as he could. “It has a nice texture. Fun to touch. I can stop though, if you like.”

“Fun?” Amy snorted, but her eyes were shining with laughter. “You are such a strange man, Colin Robinson.”

Colin smirked. His retaliation came in the form of a line of kisses, tracing the length of her scar. She seemed to like that, along with the licks he gave her remaining nipple, because soon she was clenching around him and crying out, her face buried in his neck, her arms holding him tight.

The orgasm took hold of him suddenly, and he let out a groan around her nipple that just made her tighter. He shuddered through his climax, his cock pulsing as white light flashed behind his eyes. Amy loosened her grip on him and looked down at his face resting on her chest.

“Colin?”

“I came,” he said. “It’s uh…been a while.”

Amy giggled; Colin’s roundabout apology accepted. “I was getting a little sore anyway,” she said, and climbed off him.

“Did you…?” Colin asked, already suspecting the answer.

“No,” Amy said, then quickly added, “but it’s okay! I just come easier if uh…if I’m using my fingers.” She paused, worry clouding her eyes as she regarded her date. “Colin, was I good?”

Colin smirked and kissed her, delighting in the way she seemed to melt against him. She made him feel almost human; like this was something he could wake up to every day.

“Baby pie, you are as lovely as slipping into room temperature khaki pants,” he muttered.


End file.
